In desperate need of a victory, Prime Minister Gordon Brown is making concessions to ensure members of his own party don’t vote against his proposal to permit terrorist suspects to be detained without charge for up to 42 days.
At prime minister’s questions today, Gordon Brown described the concessions published in the form of amendments to the counter-terrorism bill yesterday as “major civil-liberty safeguards”. … The amendments were intended to improve parliamentary scrutiny by requiring the home secretary to report to parliament within a week of taking the power to detain beyond 28 days. The power is also to be up for renewal every 30 days instead of every 60. In the most contested amendment, to go beyond 28 days the home secretary would be required to have received independent legal advice that the country faced an event or situation that amounted to “a grave exceptional terrorist threat”.
That David Cameron and the Conservative Party are opposing the change reveals they are perfectly willing to play politics with Britain’s security. The reform seems especially warranted in light of the stringent burden that exists for charging someone in Britain, which makes the need to gather evidence on complex conspiracies all the more paramount to prosecution.
