Labour refuse to rip up rights to tackle terror
‘Common sense measures’
LABOUR last night refused to back Theresa May’s plan to tear up human rights laws if they get in the way of tackling terrorism.
The Prime Minister has pledged to do what it takes to kick out extremists or control their movements with strict curfews and bans on using computers.
But Jeremy Corbyn and his frontbench team pledged to resist any attempts to water down human rights laws.
Despite such legislation repeatedly frustrating efforts to deport extremists, Sir Keir Starmer, Labour’s Brexit spokesman, said there was ‘nothing in the Human Rights Act that gets in the way of effectively tackling terrorism’.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today that in his former role as director of public prosecutions he ‘worked very closely with the security and intelligence services and we prosecuted very, very serious criminals and the Human Rights Act did not get in the way of what we were doing’.
Asked if he was comfortable with the fact the legislation made it more difficult to deport foreign terrorists, Sir Keir said: ‘I’m saying that we’re a country ruled by the rule of law.
‘The human rights of the Human Rights Act are international norms that the world has signed up to.
‘If we start throwing away our adherence to human rights in response to what has happened in the past three months, we are throwing away the very values we say are at the heart of our democracy.’
When asked whether Britain should follow the example of France, which put hundreds of suspected extremists under house arrest after the Paris attacks, he said: ‘I don’t think we’re at the stage of needing to introduce a state of emergency, we have got to keep our feet on the ground.’
Mr Corbyn also argued against changing human rights laws. ‘We won’t defeat terrorism by ripping up our basic rights and our democracy,’ he told BBC Breakfast.
‘We defeat terrorism by our communities, by our vigilance and by police action to isolate and detain those who wish us harm.’ Mrs May yesterday highlighted how human rights laws had made it more difficult to tackle terrorism.
‘It has taken a long time sometimes to deport terror suspects, she told LBC. ‘I’ve had some battles in the past to make sure that I can kick some hate preachers out of the United Kingdom but I did it.’
Later at a rally in Norfolk, she added: ‘The threat is evolving, we need to adapt our response to that.’
Work and Pensions Secretary Damian Green said the Prime Minister wanted to take ‘common sense measures’ to fight terrorism as ‘any responsible government would want to’. ‘We all remember the cases in the past when because of the use by these terrorists of human rights legislation they could drag the case out for many, many years – and many people rightly feel frustrated about that,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s Today.
Mr Green added that the Tory manifesto pledges to keep the UK in the European Convention of Human Rights ‘throughout the coming parliament’, though it was ‘possible to have derogations’ from the legislation.
Tory minister Andrew Percy said: ‘The terror threat is changing and we need to ensure we have the powers to take on those who seek to harm us, but Labour don’t appear willing or able.’