Last week's Labour back-bench revolt on new police powers to combat terrorism worked a treat, writes Paul Anderson
For anyone who thought that new Labour wasn't vulnerable to back-bench revolt, last week must have been a salutary experience.
On the Monday, Home Secretary Michael Howard announced a surprise bill of new police powers as an extension of the Prevention of Terrorism Act. His shadow, Jack Straw, after a briefing by the security service, agreed that Labour would not oppose it. On the Tuesday, the measures were rushed through the Commons. The cursory debate was remarkable only for Straw's miserable performance and for the barracking he got from his own backbenchers. Thirty Labour MPs, rather than abstaining, rebelled against their whips and voted in opposition to the government's guillotine motion to speed passage of the bill (see below), a figure that would have been larger had many MPs not already left Westminster for the Easter break before Howard's announcement.
Plenty more abstained ashamedly or toed the line only after several drinks as the sitting wore on until the small hours of Wednesday. And at the weekend, after a deserved rubbishing not just from civil libertarians but from the columnists in the quality press who are normally most sympathetic to new Labour, Straw sheepishly made it known that a Labour government would abandon the most controversial part of the PTA, the provisions for "exclusion orders" to prevent "suspected terrorists" from travelling from Northern Ireland to the rest of the UK.
It wasn't quite a U-turn. But the backbench revolt, aided by some acerbic press comment (a Martin Kettle column in the Guardian hit home particularly hard), had at least managed to push Straw into making an unambiguously civil libertarian policy promise in public for the first time since he was given his job. This week, libertarian Labour MPs sounded unusually chirpy. "Straw got a nice fright," said one of the many who felt like rebelling last week but didn't have the bottle. "He'll think twice before doing anything quite so stupid again."
It would be wrong to claim that the revolt says too much about Labour MPs' capacity for bloody-minded independence: by the end of the night it had dwindled to 12 on the third reading of Howard's bill, all but three of them the usual suspects from the hard-left Campaign Group. By comparison with the May 1993 rebellion against ratification of the Maastricht treaty, when 68 Labour MPs defied the whips to vote against rather than abstain, it was small beer. Nor do last week's events prove that libertarians hold sway on the Labour back benches: the number of dissidents even on the guillotine motion was smaller than the number of Labour MPs (39) who voted against a homosexual age of consent of 16 two years ago. It is notable, too, that last month, when the PTA proper came up for its annual renewal and Straw backed abstention rather than Labour's traditional opposition, there were only 23 rebels – and that was arguably a much more important policy shift than last week's little kow-tow to the Tories.
The rebellion is nevertheless significant. Considering how close a general election might be, and how tough Labour's parliamentary discipline has been of late as a consequence, it was big and just a little reckless, particularly given the widespread suspicion on the opposition benches that Howard had introduced the bill mainly to sow dissent in Labour's ranks – but it worked all the same. That will undoubtedly give heart to any MP worried about the powerlessness of the humble backbencher under a Labour government.
More important, the back-bench revulsion at the Labour leadership's backing for Howard's illiberal reinforcement of police powers is a welcome signal – at last – that there are limits to at least some Labour MPs' tolerance of the authoritarian populism on law and order that has come to characterise Labour's approach to home affairs in recent years.
Tony Blair's period as shadow home secretary, best remembered for his coining the phrase "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime", marked the start of the process with Labour's stupid and unprincipled abstention on the Criminal Justice Bill. Since Straw took over in 1994, we've had in rapid succession the slapping down of Clare Short for suggesting that it might be legitimate to discuss legalisation of cannabis, the hysterical anti-drugs sloganeering of the Littleborough and Saddleworth by-election campaign, Straw's own ill-advised remarks last year on "squeegee merchants, winos and addicts" and Labour's distinctly half-hearted opposition to the Asylum and Immigration Bill.
What is surprising is that it has taken quite so long for a significant minority to say "enough". But it's better late than never.
WHAT THE NEW POWERS MEAN
The Prevention of Terrorism (Additional Powers) Act, which sped through parliament and acquired royal assent last week, is the fourth major revision of the original 1974 Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). On each of the previous three occasions – 1976, 1984 and 1989-the powers contained within the act were significantly expanded and strengthened, and the most recent offering is no exception.
The new powers agreed by parliament will need to be renewed on an annual basis in the same way as the previous version of the PTA, which was given its latest 12-month extension just last month.
The PTA contains a wide range of provisions, which can be divided into a number of distinct headings: arrest, search and detention; "exclusion orders"; banning of organisations; port and airport control; and withholding of information from the police about terrorism. Of the five measures in the new act, three provide the police with new search powers.
First, on the authority of a police officer of ACPO rank (the Association of Chief Police Officers represents chief and assistant chief constables), the police may stop and search any pedestrian within a given area over a specified period (maximum 28 days). Similar provisions already exist in the 1994 Criminal Justice Act for vehicles, their passengers and any objects carried by pedestrians: the new measure extends them to pedestrians themselves. It is apparently designed to allow searches for small incendiary devices which may be carried by terrorists in their pockets-but civil libertarians fear that the "stop-and-search" powers mark a return to the old "sus" laws and are likely to be abused.
Second, the police may obtain granted search warrants to cover several non-residential premises. Any such warrant must be executed in full within 24 hours and cannot be used to search a home. According to the Home Office, the intention is that they be used "when police have intelligence warning of a general threat" so that, for example, several streets of buildings may be searched after a bomb warning that does not give the device's precise location.
The third measure is intended to rectify an apparent deficiency in the law: unaccompanied goods entering into the country may now be searched at ports and airports without permission.
The other two measures contained in the additional powers legislation allow the police absolute control over pedestrian and vehicle movements within a certain area. An officer of superintendent rank or above may cordon off a specified area of any size for a "limited period" (again, up to a maximum of 28 days), while an ACPO rank officer may prevent parking and remove vehicles underthe same terms. The police decision must be ratified by the Home Secretary within 48 hours.
The purpose is to give the police instant power to clear an area, although it is less than obvious how they were previously lacking in this respect. A police spokesman said: "There is no intention to designate areas unless there is good intelligence or a reasonable suspicion that a terrorist act is imminent or to prevent one taking place."
The timing of the introduction of the new act was determined largely by political factors, although Home Secretary Michael • Howard has insisted that "the police have asked me for these extra powers now, both to protect the public and to help them prevent further terrorist outrages". Whether the new measures will have any effect at all on the incidence of terrorism is a moot point, however: perhaps the most telling criticism of the PTA is that, in more than 20 years, it has failed utterly to prevent terrorism-and the new act is unlikely to change that. (Patrick Fitzgerald)
THE REBELS
The following Labour MPs voted with the Liberal Democrats and various small-party MPs against the government's guillotine motion on the Prevention of Terrorism (Additional Powers) Bill last week: Diane Abbott (Hackney North);Tony Banks (Newham NW); Harry Barnes (Derbyshire NE); Tony Benn (Chesterfield); Andrew Bennett (Denton and Reddish); Richard Burden (Birmingham Northfield); Dennis Canavan (Falkirk W); Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley); Harry Cohen (Leyton); Robin Corbett (Birmingham Erdington); Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North);Terry Davis (Birmingham Hodge Hill); Neil Gerrard (Walthamstow); Norman Godman(Greenock); Bernie Grant (Tottenham); Lynne Jones (Birmingham Selly Oak);Terry Lewis (Worsley); Ken Livingstone (Brent E); Eddie Loyden (Liverpool Garston); Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock); Kevin McNamara (Hull N); Max Madden (Bradford W); Alice Mahon (Halifax); Jim Marshall (Leicester S); Bill Michie (Sheffield Heeley); Peter Pike (Burnley); Brian Sedgemore (Hackney S); Dennis Skinner (Bolsover); Rob Wareing (Liverpool W Derby); Audrey Wise (Preston).
The following Labour MPs voted against the third reading of the bill: Harry Barnes; Tony Benn; Andrew Bennett; Bernie Grant; Ken Livingstone; Kevin McNamara; Max Madden; Bill Michie; Brian Sedgemore; Dennis Skinner. Jeremy Corbyn and Dennis Canavan were tellers.
