The U.K.: Broken Democracy

by A. Millar
December 9, 2008 at 6:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/139/the-uk-broken-democracy

Sometimes I marvel at the assumption of the British public, that no matter how bad things get, the country will somehow never turn into a tin pot dictatorship. Perhaps this belief is part of the residue of the British Empire. It seems impossible that a country that once ruled half the world, could itself hit bottom. But if history repeats itself, it also tells us to expect the unexpected. Cuba was synonymous with the casino until the Revolution, and Germany with the cabaret as Nazism was marching to power. Today, Britain leads the world in multiculturalism and political correctness, yet has more CCTV cameras than any other country in the world. And a government that shouts about human rights is determinedly undermining the most basic of freedoms.

In the last few years alone, anti-terror laws have been routinely invoked by local councils, to enable them to spy on residents, for such trivial reasons as checking if rubbish bags have been put out on the wrong day. Compulsory ID cards linked to a central database, and containing fifty categories of personal information, including biometrics, will be introduced in 2010. As unveiled in the Queen’s speech, police will also soon be able to criminalize anyone who has ever been abroad, but does not produce identification on request.

Things have gone too far. Only this week, the European Court of Human Rights declared that it was unlawful for British police to store the fingerprints and DNA information, of those innocent of any crime, on a permanent database. (There are currently about 850,000 people who have never been convicted of a crime, who are on the database in question.)

Rightly, the arrest of Conservative MP Damian Green last week continues to occupy the press and opposition parties. Green was arrested by anti-terror police and held for nine hours while his home and office were searched, his mobile phone and papers confiscated, and his parliamentary email frozen, simply because he had leaked information to the press that exposed government incompetence. It now transpires that he was arrested not on an anti-terror charge, but “on suspicion of conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office,” an ambiguous piece of legislation that - while carrying a maximum sentence of life imprisonment - could be made to fit the accusation. Nor, indeed, did police have a warrant to search his office.

Britain’s politicians now seem to be fully alert to the implications for Britain’s future if the government’s frightening and authoritarian direction is not reversed. Lib Dem’s leader Nick Clegg said that Green’s arrest is, “a mayday warning for British democracy.” UKIP leader Nigel Farage has said, "When the police start arresting politicians for doing their job then we're well down the path to a police state.” And former Labour MP, and socialist, Tony Benn commented similarly that, “[…] once the police can interfere with parliament, I tell you, you are into a police state.”

Again, Liberty Director Shami Chakrabarti said, “The fundamental duty of the Metropolitan police is to protect Londoners from harm, not the Government from political embarrassment.” And leader of the Conservative Party David Cameron wrote in a piece entitled ‘An assault on all our rights,’ published in The News of the World, that his initial reaction to the arrest was shock, but that:

[…] when I was able to satisfy myself that this was not about our national security but government embarrassment, shock turned to anger. I’m convinced this is a watershed moment. […] Of course the police should have operational independence, but do you think it’s right for them to behave in this way with respect to Parliament when what is at stake is the right of one and all to hold government to account?

Nick Clegg also wrote in an article, aptly entitled ‘Damian Green arrest shows how Labour is destroying our political system,’ that:

“Our political system is […] in deep trouble: sinking public confidence in MPs, feeble parliamentary scrutiny, a rigid culture of Whitehall secrecy, and an electoral system that hands unprecedented powers to governments freed from any meaningful scrutiny from other parties. This unprecedented arrest is a wake-up call. We must save our broken democracy.”

British politicians do not like to speak of “police states,” “broken democracy,” “watershed moments,” “wake-up calls,” or “anger,” and it seems especially out of character for Cameron, who has so carefully crafted his image as a nice politician that cares about children and the environment. But if there is one thing that the British public misses, it is the fiery, truculent politician of yesteryear, whose gut reaction was to defend the freedoms of citizens against the state. If Britain’s broken democracy is to be saved, then British politicians need to be angry at this outrage, and at the sinister and very creepy cabal that calls itself a government. Otherwise this wake-up call might be seen by future generations as parliamentary democracy’s last call.

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