May: I’ll tear up human rights laws that help fanatics
‘Fast-changing and very serious threat’
THERESA May last night pledged to rip up human rights laws if they get in the way of her strengthening powers to deport suspected terrorists or restrict their movements.
The Prime Minister wants to beef up anti-terror orders so plotters can be placed under stricter curfews, banned from meeting associates and prohibited from using computers or mobile phones.
It would mark a return to a system closer to the restrictive control orders that were axed in 2011 at the bidding of then Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg following a row over human rights.
Mrs May last night used one of her final speeches of the election campaign to pledge she would ensure security services had the powers they needed.
Speaking at a rally in Slough 36 hours before the polls open, she said: ‘The choice facing the British people on Thursday matters more than ever – and that is the fastchanging and very serious threat we face from extremism and terrorism.
‘We need to make sure the police and security and intelligence agencies have the powers they need. We should have longer prison sentences for people convicted of terrorist offences. We should make it easier for the authorities to deport foreign terror suspects.
‘And we should do even more to restrict the freedom and the movements of terrorist suspects when we have enough evidence to know they present a threat, but not enough evidence to prosecute them in full in court.’
She added: ‘If our human rights laws stop us from doing it, we will change the laws so we can do it. If I am elected as Prime Minister on Thursday, I can tell you that this vital work begins on Friday.’
In the wake of the London Bridge attack, in which seven people were killed, experts have urged ministers to expand the use of control-order style powers.
T-Pims – Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures – are supposed to ensure the police and MI5 can protect the public from British-based fanatics who cannot yet be prosecuted or deported but whom the Home Secretary believes is involved in terror-related activities, based on an MI5 assessment.
Introduced in January 2012, they place curbs on suspects’ activities, which can include electronic tagging, reporting regularly to the police and being banned from particular places. But currently only seven extremists are subject to the orders. By contrast, after the Paris attacks last November, almost 400 people were placed under house arrest in France by the authorities there.
T-Pims are also less restrictive than the previous control orders. They only impose a maximum of ten hours’ curfew a day compared to 16 hours before.
The suspect is also allowed to use a phone and the internet to work and study, subject to conditions, which they could not do under control orders. The previous rules could also relocate a suspect far from their home and ban them from meeting specific people.
Security chiefs have warned that hundreds of young Britons who joined Islamic State in Iraq and Syria have returned home, while jihadis have also brainwashed ‘ lone wolf’ Muslims to carry out attacks.
The Tory manifesto promises Britain will remain a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights until 2022, but last night’s remarks suggest Mrs May would look at ways around the rules if necessary.
Derogating from the ECHR in times of war or public emergency is permitted under the rules of the Council of Europe. France signalled it would derogate after the Paris massacres in 2015, while Turkey lodged a similar notice following a failed military coup last July.
The UK also notified the Council of a succession of temporary derogations during the Northern Ireland Troubles in the 1970s.
Former government counter-terrorism adviser Lord Carlile said on Monday that T-Pims had been watered down too much and argued for the ‘insertion into T-Pims of all the controls available under control orders because it works’.