Since Gordon Brown took over from Tony Blair I’ve been trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, hoping that he’d eventually abandon Blair’s illiberal and dangerous attacks on our civil liberties. Following his IPPR speech today he no longer gets that benefit.

Brown continues to live in the crazy Blair Wonderland where compulsory national ID Cards, CCTV surveillance and mass DNA databases are seen as protecting civil liberties. Sections of his speech look as if they were written by Blair. I’m not going to do a line by line Fisking, however I do want to pick out a few of the most ludicrous and disturbing lines.

The madness starts with Brown’s claim to support three basic principles:

“- never subjecting the citizen to arbitrary treatment,
- always respecting basic rights and freedoms,
- and, wherever new action is needed, matching it with stronger safeguards and more transparency and scrutiny”

That sounds good, but those three principles are precisely the ones that New Labour has been attacking with zeal. Retaining DNA of innocent people subjects citizens to arbritary treatment. 42 day internment, RIPA (the snoopers’ charter) and a huge, intrusive National Identity Register (NIR) show contempt for basic rights such as the assumption of innocence and personal privacy. As for scrutiny, the UK Freedom of Information Act contains enough loopholes to make any such scrutiny meaningless. And how “transparent” is it to lock someone up for six weeks without even telling them what they’re suspected of having done?

Brown goes on say:

“The safeguards cannot lie in measures that make it impossible for the police to complete an investigation into terrorist activities - something which would in the end harm all our civil liberties - but must lie instead in ensuring that the civil liberties of a person detained are protected by clear rules and by proper accountability”

I find it amazing that he can talk as if being locked up for six weeks without charge is just a minor inconvenience that can somehow be “managed”. Locking someone up for six weeks without charge is a complete violation of civil liberties and what little is left of the Magna Carta. I doubt an innocent victim of such internment would feel happier knowing that at least the right forms had been filled in.

Brown fails to recognise that a breach of fundamental civil liberties remains a breach even if it follows rules and procedures.

On ID Cards and the NIR, Brown continues the Blair era disinformation campaign:

“Opponents of the identity card scheme like to suggest that its sole motivation is to enhance the power of the state - but in fact it starts from a recognition of the importance of something which is fundamental to the rights of the individual: the right to have your identity protected and secure”

This again tries to sell the ID scheme as if it were somehow for our benefit. If that there were the case there’d be no need to make it compulsory and resort to dirty tricks like coercion of young people to get the ball rolling. I would happily welcome a voluntary ID scheme that gave me control of my identity rather than nationalising it and giving me with a state-issued licence to live.

On the issue of voluntary vs compulsory, how’s this for misdirection:

“We have no plans for it to become compulsory for people to carry an ID card”

True but irrelevant - the issue isn’t a piece of plastic but the massive database behind it. And it will be compulsory for everyone to be on that. Like it or not we’ll be scanned, filed and numbered. As for carrying the card, sure it won’t be legally compulsory. But if their usage becomes as widespread as the government seems to envisage then it will become impossible to operate in society without carying one. De facto compulsion to carry is still compulsion.

As for DNA, Brown says:

“I believe that instead of rejecting the technologies of the modern world we should adopt them while ensuring that the individual is properly protected against any possibility of arbitrary treatment.”

Yet he then goes on to defend the indefinite holding of DNA samples from innocent people charged with no offence - which is about as arbitrary as it gets.

For me the most galling section of Brown’s speech is this:

“We must recognise that winning the battle of ideas means championing liberty. To say we should ignore the longstanding claims of liberty when faced with the urgent needs of security is tempting to some, but never to me - it would be to embark down an illiberal path that is as unacceptable to the British people as it is to me.”

Coming from a man who is continuing Blair’s attack on the very foundations of our civil liberties this statement is akin to a cannibal espousing vegetarianism.

Brown is clearly living in a topsy-turvy Wonderland where the rule is “Freedom yesterday and freedom tomorrow - but never freedom today”. Instead of cancelling Blair’s dangerous Tea Party, Brown just keeps on pouring.

The Brown Hatter must go.

Related posts:
•Brown’s Crewe Blues
•David Davis’ Resignation: Analysis
•A Bad Day for Big Brother