We aren’t using the anti-terror powers we have
It makes electoral sense. But does it make any other kind of sense? In a last-ditch campaign offensive on Tuesday, Theresa May suddenly proclaimed that she was ready to rip up human rights law in order to stop the terrorists from striking again.
This succeeded in what was probably its primary purpose – shifting attention away from police budgets – but otherwise achieved very little. Yesterday morning, work and pensions secretary Damian Green went on the radio to elaborate and was asked whether Mrs May’s plan would require changes to human rights law. “It might do,” he declared, before alluding, vaguely, to “derogations” from the law that are already available and might prove useful.
It’s not surprising if he’s confused. The Government and the security services have an impressive array of powers to target terror suspects. The issue does not seem to be restrictions caused by human rights law, but a decision not to use powers and the flexibility Britain already has.
These include some of the toughest anti-terror tools in the business. The UK has one of the broadest definitions of terrorism in the world, an ability to put suspects under incredibly rigorous surveillance (tags, bugs, relocation, house arrest, bans from travel or the internet – you name it) and, almost uniquely in the world, the power to strip people of citizenship.
Despite the escalating threat, the authorities don’t seem to use the toughest of these powers very much. Just six people are currently subject to the strictest surveillance regime. Authorities regularly fail to deport people who are not meant to be here – London Bridge terrorist Rachid Redouane was rejected for asylum back in 2009, for example – and we even let in individuals already on terror watchlists, such as Redouane’s accomplice Youssef Zaghba.
Clearly, it’s not easy keeping Britain safe or watching all the thousands of extremists estimated to be in the country. We certainly can’t start trailing every attention-seeking narcissist who waves a black flag in the park.
But before embarking on a dramatic overhaul of human rights law – or slyly implying that this is on the cards – the government might consider what powers it already has, or could easily introduce, and why they are not being used. Is there a genuine resource problem (rather than a Labour confected one), despite the big boost already given to intelligence budgets? Why is Britain almost alone in making it impossible to use intercept evidence gathered by surveillance in court? Should we look again at prerequisites for citizenship? Can the existing law to strip traitors of citizenship be made more legally robust?
None of these measures would require repealing the Human Rights Act. But they might also not make such good headlines.
How strange this modern conflict seems from the tunnels of Fan Bay in Kent. While hosting some American visitors over the weekend, I found myself 70ft underground in a damp bunker, contemplating the all-consuming, existential battle for survival that this country was engaged in just two generations ago.
The National Trust has dug out and reopened the Fan Bay tunnels, which were built on the white cliffs to house
‘There are measures that do not require repeal of human rights law, but might not make such good headlines’
soldiers manning several huge guns trained on the Channel and northern France from 1941 onwards. The conditions were grim: cold, wet, lightless if not for the dripping chains of bulbs hanging on black cables.
For the defenders, the prize was visible in the sparkling, pale blue sea: thousands of tons being shipped back and forth by enemy vessels. Before the war was over, the guns had sunk hundreds of ships trying to pass beneath.
On the misty coast of France opposite, an array of German artillery fired back. One of them even sent shells whistling into Dover, where the residents built their own tunnels in which to hide (some of these bunkers, I was told, are now to be found under Marks & Spencer).
All of this makes war seem so clear. The enemy is over there. We’re over here. The guns lob their shells in one direction.
How different it is from the current threat, the knives and cars and fanatics living here among us, in British flats, living off British benefits, enjoying British freedoms. Could the cowering residents of Dover have imagined the raging debate we now face over loyalty and religion, the online preachers and bomb-making tutorials, the foreign fighters and citizenship?
From a distance, war can seem heroic and clarifying. For those living it, though, it was a period of true horror. For all the savagery of Islamist terrorism, I wouldn’t trade our war for theirs.
Despite the military prowess on display, my stroll along the white cliffs did bring home a singular British failure: the pathetic state of our infrastructure. For miles at a time, my phone couldn’t even catch the faintest of signals. The only time it did briefly sputter to life, it was, in fact, on a French network. One for the Brexit negotiations, perhaps.