British spies accused of secretly colluding with the CIA and foreign governments in a plot that sees people tortured in foreign countries. Not only does it sound like the storyline of many a political thriller, take that story and place it in almost any post-war decade and you’d expect it to be a Conservative government doing the colluding and Labour MPs decrying the international conspiracy, with a campaigning left-wing journalist thrown in for good measure publishing scoops and demanding an independent judicial inquiry.
Except, of course, in the topsy turvey political days that we live it was a Labour government that was accused and it is now a Conservative foreign secretary, in a Conservative / Liberal Democrat coalition, announcing plans for the judicial inquiry.
The inquiry itself is extremely welcome, particularly given the severity of some of the allegations that have been made. It will also come with an interesting political twist because one of the Foreign Secretaries whose record will be under scrutiny is that of Labour leadership contender David Miliband.
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16 Comments
Mark,
I have in the last month obtained under FOI irrefutable documentary evidence of New Labour ministers’ complicity in torture, which proves beyond dispute the truth of the eyewitness testimony I have been giving for the last six years (which the New Labour government continually denied).
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/05/new_labours_com.html
I pray the inquiry happens, that it will have a wide remit, be held in public, and unlike Chilcot it will hear testimony on oath.
This is excellent news. It is alarming how in the US the Republican party now seem to support torture as a legitimate course of action. I have been concerned that this attack on liberalism would be exported to this country as well, particularly given William Hague’s links to the Republicans.
An early inquiry will hopefully stop that in it’s tracks.
Geoffrey Payne
To be fair, Hague was consistently pretty good on torture in opposition.
If there were denials, could there be prosecutions? It would nice if the Conservatives were to think that it could be in their party interest to pursue Labour over this. This is one advantage of the party system – people may do the right thing for the wrong reasons
With Shami Chakrabati’s plaintive cry “we’re talking about people’s l-i-i-i-i-i-i-ves” still ringing in my ears from Question Time, I wonder if the position of the New Politics is that the Her Majesty’s Prisons become world prisons; saving anyone who has elected to take part in violent insurrection or terrorist action from the consequences of less-than-virtuous legal systems.
The thought occurs that any one country cannot be expected to take responsibility for non-citizens’ detention. The Geneva Convention does not apply in such cases, as a recent ruling by the Court of Session in Edinburgh made clear to Dawalat Khan Nasir who was looking for a logistical base following a falling-out with fellow members Hizb ut Gulbidden.
In the absense of funding from the UN for their monitoring, I would suggest that individuals captured in such combat theatres should be placed in a military-run establishment with full access from NGOs and international monitors such as the ICRC.
They are not Prisoners of War. They are pirates, and should be treated as existing legislation allows.
The defence of the human rights of individuals under the Human Rights Act Ming Campbell was expounded brilliantly on BBC `Question Time’ this week, when he told us that it maintains continuity in the UK with the European Convention of Human Rights, in its universality of application.
We cannot afford to be selective about what parts of Human Rights law are seen at any one time to be important as the universality of the European Convention of Human Rights, is binding on all liberals in a free society.
Not so effectively, Patrick. There was no suggestion that the two A-Q operatives were at risk of mistreatent due to their sexuality or ethnicity, as Campbell attempted to imply… they would be because of their conscious choice to be part of a terrorist group perpetrating war-crimes against civilians every day.
This is not a computer game which can be reset whenever something goes wrong.
@Kehaar
Labour under Blair and Brown under pressure goes all Stalin, Bush & Trotsky, then when they’re booted out just whine from the sidelines. Grow up, please.
It is clear that the great majority of people in this country are fed up of being tarred with the same brush and want a return to the status quo ante: a commonsense, fair and liberal criminal justice system and a similar treatment of our enemies. Unless you were watching and listening to last night’s QT with red-tinted prejudice.
I am not and never have been a Labour Party, and I did not vote Labour at any point during the past 13 years.
Pretty chuffing rich to accuse others of being like Stalin when you adopt the Stalinist tactic of branding dissent as not just wrong but malicious.
PS Bush/Trotsky? What the Dickens?
@Kehaar
“There was no suggestion that the two A-Q operatives were at risk of mistreatent due to their sexuality or ethnicity, as Campbell attempted to imply”
That is plain rubbish, you just made that up, Ming said nothing of the sort. Just a naughty little Labour troll. Run away before the sun rises.
Campbell (unless you know him personally, calling him by his first-name or derivative thereof sounds unctuous) said just those things in response to a question about A-Q members being allowed to stay in this country. If he was not linking the two, he was not answering the question… what is a distinct possibility given that Dimbleby picked him up on his consistency.
You are not the most self-aware of individuals. Having submitted yourself to the pack, you believe all others operate according to the same partisan motives.
If you’d prefer an echo chamber where you don’t have to deal with hoi polloi, start your own blog. You can be sure I won’t read it.
As it stands, this is an open blog and you cannot control what is discussed.
@Kehaar
“Campbell said just those things in response to a question about A-Q members being allowed to stay in this country.”
Campbell made a general point about circumstances in which it would not be correct to allow anyone to be deported. He made the specific point that the two men in question might face torture or death in Pakistan from the security services there, no claim was made regarding their sexuality being the cause of such treatment. Your point is so contrived as to be so stupid that you would be embarrassed to make it, if only you were not so obtuse.
“As it stands, this is an open blog and you cannot control what is discussed.”
You made that up too, it was just pointed out what is obvious to anyone reading your posts for the last week or two. Just a Labour troll, hopping mad that the Liberal Democrats should form a government without the permission or presence of your beloved party.
“calling him by his first-name or derivative thereof sounds unctuous”
Lessons in etiquette from you don’t wash; the man is universally known as “Ming”, so “Ming” he is. Anoint yourself with oil, if you so must and as you see fit, but drip poison elsewhere, please.
Yeah, so? He was asked about a specific case. To start burbling about that was as relevant as that speaker who started burbling about proposed LibDem amnesties – in other words, it wasn’t. It was filibustering.
Because of their electing to join A-Q. As I said above, if you think HM Prisons should become World Prisons, say so. You’d be wrong.
If someone elects to enter a combat situation – especially one as venal as A-Q – they should count themselves lucky if they don’t get killed. It is an insult to the victims of A-Q violence, and of individuals fleeing genuine persecution to equate their situation with that of these goons.
And I never said he did. I did say he introduced that information to hide his lack of a response which convinced even him.
By whom? His nearest and dearest, or a media titillated by the pronunciation of “Menzies”? You don’t afford Gordon and Tony with the same degree of conviviality, I note.
Yeah, what does that coincide with? Beforehand, I was being called a Tory troll. Rules apply only to the little people, not the Party Faithful.
You’ve done it again! I’ve stated clearly in this thread, just as I always do, that I am not and never have been a member of the Labour Party and never have voted Labour.
You cannot tell me or anyone what to do. The most basic rule of argument is the assume to best possible motives in one’s opponent, but you argue consistently in the baddest of faith by showing such contempt for others that you openly lie about what they say.
Liberal my foot. You’re a Justified Sinner.
@Kehaar
You have had absolutely nothing positive to say here for a fortnight, not a single post, not a single paragraph, not a single sentence, not a single word, not even a single emoticon. Most of your arguments are thin at best and many are simply contrived, not to say ill tempered. Troll. The word fits. Wear it.
Kehaar, my dear friend, I have been happy to participate on Labour and Conservative blogs and have had people agree and disagree with me. However, you are unique, in my encounters. You are unremittingly negative, have no point to make or defend, but post solely to disrupt the discourse. People are quite welcome to do a search on your posts and investigate this point. You wish ill to the project that the Liberal Democrats have undertaken; your posts are green-eyed.
@Kehaar
“There was no suggestion that the two A-Q operatives were at risk of mistreatent due to their sexuality or ethnicity, as Campbell attempted to imply”
To which:
“He made the specific point that the two men in question might face torture or death in Pakistan from the security services there, no claim was made regarding their sexuality being the cause of such treatment.”
I note that you have been unwilling to defend this point, instead accused Ming Campbell of filibustering. So therefore, clearly, and after watching the QT debate again on BBC iPlayer to check this, your statement that Ming Campbell said that the two men concerned would be persecuted in Pakistan due to their sexuality is simply untrue. You made it up, for whatever reason only you would know.