Ours is Good Terror

  The above is a quote from Australian comedian Steve Hughes. If you're not familiar with him, I urge you to rectify that as soon as possible. As a political satirist, virtually no-one dares go as far. In the particular routine I reference, he points out the hypocrisy of the US-led 'War on Terror' - an exercise which, its futility aside, creates just as much terror as it eradicates. If not far more. Nevertheless, George Bush's ill-omened attempt to wipe out global terrorism, regardless of the cost, has been with us more than twelve years and counting. And the consequences for individual freedoms have been huge.

  The most well-publicised example of the erosion of our liberty has been the mass surveillance undertaken by the NSA - the USA's National Security Agency - and its UK equivalent, GCHQ. These agencies are a subsection of the two nations' security services but, unlike MI5, MI6, the CIA or the FBI, they do not participate actively in maintaining national 'security'. Instead, they monitor public communications and feed this information to the other services. The amount of information these agencies have access to is astonishing. Between them, they can access the online and telecommunications of every US and UK citizen, as well as any foreign national using US- or UK-based websites and many international telecommunication lines into the bargain. Although GCHQ is checked to a degree by UK privacy laws, the NSA is under no such burdens - and as the two agencies share most of their data, this means that UK as well as US security services have access to YOUR personal data. The scale of this information-gathering is equally astounding - Edward Snowden, NSA whistleblower, has revealed that the NSA acquired over 97 billion internet data items and nearly 125 billion telephone data items in just one month (8th Feb-8th March 2013). This represents an unacceptable intrusion into what is, in both the USA and the UK, legally protected privacy.

  The security agencies claim that this information is necessary to protect us from terror threats. However, since this information in obtained indiscriminately, without warrants, and can be stored indefinitely and passed to third parties as the agencies see fit, it represents a far greater threat to individual freedom than any terrorist organisation the world over. At least al-Qaeda have the good grace to admit that they intend to deprive the world of its civil liberties. The UK and US governments do so on a daily basis, in secret, whilst pretending to uphold democracy.

  And the surveillance state is not the limit of human rights abuses by Western governments. Not by a long way. The continued existence of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, proven to play host to scenes of torture and other human rights breaches and illegal under international law, is perhaps the single greatest affront to the pretense of liberal democracy in the Western world. Despite Barack Obama's stated commitment to abolish the camp by the end of 2010, it still exists today - along with its 155 detainees, at least 18 of whom are children and against none of whom any kind of legally prosecutable case exists. It is a disgrace, for which no justification has or can be made.

  Here in the UK, too, the government is far from innocent. Anti-terror legislation in the wake of 9/11 became quickly and increasingly hysterical, as Blair and his successors used the golden opportunity of mass tragedy to tighten their grip on the country. Having been told their original plan to lock up all terror suspects indefinitely without trial was a breach of their own human rights act, the Blair administration instead created control orders which allow them to place foreign terror suspects under 16-hour-a-day house arrest, relocate them tens or even hundreds of miles from their family and friends and place them under electronic tagging, for two full years. All this without a shred of evidence that would be admitted to any court. And now Theresa May, as Home Secretary, has begun the practise of stripping British terror suspects of their citizenship - without any kind of trial, of course. 37 individuals have suffered this fate since the government came to power, twenty of these in the last two months.

  All of this is set against a backdrop of the continuing US-led Western occupation of Afghanistan and accompanying operations across the Middle East and North Africa. The governments involved don't seem to realise that their actions have helped cause the current crisis, and are certainly unlikely to alleviate it. Aggressive Western neo-imperialism is one of the main reasons behind the growing wave of Islamic fundamentalism, and ending such unwanted interference in the internal affairs of foreign countries is the only way to bring about an end to the chaos that has engulfed the region. The UK and USA should by all means support democracy, but illegal wars and secretive military strikes on the sovereign territory of other nations is hardly conducive to such an aim.

  The simple fact of the matter is this - the War on Terror is doomed to fail, if we take as its objective the eradication of all major terrorist organisations worldwide. It simply cannot be achieved, not by Western military aggression at any rate. If, however, the objective of the exercise is to give the political and administrative leaders of our countries unprecedented control of the populace, then it has already succeeded. And that is something we should be profoundly concerned about.

  As ex-Liberal Democrat minister Chris Huhne ironically once said, 1984 was a warning, not a blueprint.

The Death of Liberal England?

  Those who recognised the reference to George Dangerfield's 1935 treatise on the decline of the Liberal Party, 'The Strange Death of Liberal England', take a house point. Shame on the rest of you...

  The Liberal Democrats are going through what even the most optimistic Cleggite would be forced to describe as a rocky patch. The party leadership's seeming inability to deal with the scandal brewing around former CEO Chris Rennard is but the latest nail in what is already looking like a fairly well-sealed coffin. Having claimed in 2010 that they were creating three-party politics in the UK, they seem to have succeeded admirably - the problem is, they're not one of the three.

  Yes, the spectre of UKIP would appear to have manifested itself in all its betentacled glory. The latest poll, which happens to be the ComRes/Independent on Sunday, puts voting intention for UKIP at 19% - more than twice the Lib Dems' 8%. UK Polling Report, a website which publishes - among other things - a weighted rolling average of the most recent polls, puts the figures closer (UKIP 13%:11% Lib Dem) but even this is a worry for a party savouring its first taste of power in eighty years. If the Lib Dems don't want to end up cast back into the political wilderness, they need to show that they are a stronger party than the upstart UKIP. If an organisation which started out as little more than a single-issue pressure group should manage to overtake the inheritors of a political tradition which stretches back to before the reign of Queen Victoria, it would spell the end of any Lib Dem hopes of further experience of government for the foreseeable future.

  Most likely the UKIP threat will fade somewhat after the European elections this year, and the Liberal Democrats will find themselves back in third place, if only barely. But even that is just not good enough. If Clegg and his party want to be taken seriously as an alternative to the Labour and Conservative Parties, they will have to do much, much better. At the last general election, the party took 23% of the vote. The chances of them matching that feat this time around seem slim to say the least, and - due to the admittedly unfair first-past-the-post electoral system - they will have to increase that by at least another 10% to pose a serious challenge to the entrenched parties. On their current course, this is simply not going to happen.

  The reasons for the Lib Dems' paltry performance in the polls are many. The betrayal over the tuition fees issue early on in the Parliament is still a wound fresh and raw in the minds of many students, traditionally one of the party's core target demographics. The number of students voting Liberal Democrat in 2015 is likely to be small. Then there is the simple 'guilty by association' effect of being in government with the Tories. With every right-wing policy Cameron or Osborne announces, the Liberal Democrat brand becomes further and further toxified. Meanwhile, those government policies that are the Lib Dems' own - raising the tax threshold, the recent announcement of support for a higher minimum wage, etc. - and would likely prove popular with voters are effortlessly hijacked by the Tories. It seems the poor boys in yellow can do nothing right.

  Put simply, Nick Clegg's strategy of 'aggressive differentiation' is failing. The long years of coalition have alienated many of the Lib Dems' traditional supporters, whilst those who would otherwise have used the party as a protest vote against the government are now forced by their participation to defect to UKIP, or even the Greens. Sad though it may be to see it happen, the Liberal Democrat party seems fated to crash and burn in 2015.

  And with scarcely a hair's breadth of difference on most policy areas between Labour and the Conservatives, that cannot be good for British democracy

The State of the Union

  Michael Fabricant yesterday put forward the latest in a small but growing number of calls for an English Parliament. Whilst his suggested location of Lichfield (his own constituency) may have been slightly tongue-in-cheek, the remainder of his proposals actually make a good deal of sense.

  The time of the UK as a unitary state has long passed. Since the devolution binge of the late 90s, when Tony Blair's administration established national assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, there has remained something of an elephant in the room. That elephant's name is England. Blair's plan for English sub-national assemblies was stymied when the North-East region rejected theirs, and ever since no real action has been taken to reconcile the position of England within the Union. 

  Opposition to an English Parliament of any kind is founded on the principle that the UK is and should remain a united, homogenous nation-state, but this ideal is patently false. We must accept that there is a significant cultural difference between the UK's four constituent countries (as well as within them, particularly in different regions of England) and take this into consideration when planning for the future. Assuming that Scotland does not elect to leave the Union, a relatively safe bet, we have a perfect opportunity in these turbulent times to reshape the constitutional arrangement of the state. 

  The current situation is one of imbalance, with Scotland having more significant powers than Wales, whilst Wales has more than Northern Ireland, and in all of it England has no control over its own affairs at all. This gives rise to significant problems. The West Lothian Question, the issue that Scottish MPs sit in the Westminster Parliament and make decisions which affect only England, whilst Scottish MSPs have sole control over similar decisions made in Scotland, has been a sticking point for more than fifteen years. It led, amongst other things, to the introduction of tuition fees for English Universities only passing Parliament due to the votes of Scottish Labour MPs, whilst Scottish students receive their higher education for free. This is a serious problem, and in the face of high levels of Scottish nationalism is likely to remain so. The same issues could theoretically occur between England and Wales, or England and Northern Ireland, although these countries - having less MPs - will have a reduced impact.

  We have, in short, an odd, quasi-federal system which favours certain areas of the UK over others, often - but not always - to the detriment of England in particular. It would be better, therefore, to create a separate English Parliament with responsibility for specifically English affairs. The Westminster Parliament could then have the number of MPs reduced, saving on political bureaucracy, and would oversee the national assemblies, whilst at the same time retaining responsibility for Foreign Affairs, security and other UK-wide areas. Powers between the four national assemblies should also be equalised, giving each country the same opportunities to administrate their own affairs. This will settle the West Lothian Question, along with other problems that the status quo causes, and prevent resentment of English people towards their Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish counterparts. Let us not forget that, if the Scottish Independence referendum were to be held in England, polls show that the Yes campaign would almost certainly win.

  As for location, there is indeed a real issue with an over-focus on London, and I agree with Fabricant that a prospective English Parliament and government offices should not be located in the capital. Whilst this may seem a little odd, it is vital that greater support is given to the regions of the UK and that London does not race too far ahead. It will also be important to differentiate between the English and UK Parliaments, and having both located in the same city will muddy the waters and prevent a clear distinction being drawn in the minds of most people. Specific location matters less - historically, Winchester makes sense, as the capital of England before the Norman invasion, but economically somewhere in the midlands would perhaps be better, and would also be more central. 

  Wherever the new Parliament is located, though, it will stand as a concrete example of a UK which is not complacent; not afraid to make changes if the status quo is unfair or otherwise damaging. And that is the UK we need to build if we are to succeed in the future.

I Agree With Nigel Farage

  Well, that's a sentence I don't utter very often. As a general rule, I respect Mr. Farage for being one of the few politicians in modern Britain willing to speak his mind, but I rarely agree with those impassioned outbursts that he does so well. On the issue of Syrian refugees, however, some surprising common ground has at last emerged.

  Such a rare event, I thought it justified a blog.

  Because, like it or not, Nigel is making some considerable sense. UKIP grassroots members have lambasted him for allegedly 'giving in to the liberal media' and abandoning his anti-immigration stance by joining the growing voice putting pressure on the government to accept some of the exodus from the terrible Civil War that has torn Syria apart. They argue that it is madness to oppose the influx of Romanian and Bulgarian migrants which many on the right have predicted (but which doesn't seem to have materialised just yet) and at the same time open the UK's arms to thousands of Syrian refugees. On the face of it, this does seem a little hypocritical, but when you think about it it's actually entirely justified.

  Farage and his party oppose economic migration. They are the respectable voice of the significant minority of the British working and lower-middle classes who see immigration as a mechanism by which foreigners come to the country and steal jobs from British workers. But, as the man himself has pointed out, Farage's latest plea is not at all at odds with his main objective, because the Syrian refugees are emphatically NOT economic immigrants. They are desperate people fleeing for their lives from a brutal conflict which has engulfed their homes. 2.4 million desperate people - and the government stance is that not a single one may pass the UK borders.

  Clearly, we cannot take them all - that WOULD be madness. As much as we may wish it were otherwise, the UK does not have the economic infrastructure to accept such a large number of destitute people so quickly. If they were economic migrants, it might be different, but that's another matter entirely. These people will be starting in this country from nothing, and the level of support they will require to survive and thrive here will be too great to admit such large numbers.

  But not to take any? That seems callous in the extreme.

  The EU as a whole has spectacularly failed in its moral duty under the 1951 Covention on the Status of Refugees to help the people of Syria survive this war. 28 member states, covering almost 1.7 million square miles of territory, and we have collectively welcomed just 12,340 refugees. This is a pitiful amount by any standard, and yet even Spain's paltry contribution of 30 places is generous compared to the UK. We are offering nothing. Precisely no places at all. Those UKIPpers who have derided Farage for his humanitarian stance on this issue would probably be the first to revel in the nostalgia of the 'good old days' of 'Great' Britain. But when the UK has failed to match even Germany's modest intake of 10,000, how can this country possibly claim to be anything more than a second-rate backwater power falling rapidly behind the front runners in the race for the twenty-first century?

  If we want to prove that the UK still has the capacity to affect the world around it, and for the better for a change, then the best thing to do is to agree to take in a portion of the persecuted diaspora of humanity that the cruelty of the Assad regime has caused to be exiled from their homes. 

  And what of Farage's suggestion that those we do take be limited to Christian Syrians, a persecuted minority composing about 10% of the population? This is a more difficult topic. We should be instinctively wary of favouring any one religious (or, for that matter, non-religious) group over another in the allocation of asylum places. Certainly, the days when the UK was a Christian-dominated society have long since passed. However, Farage's argument that Sunni and Shia refugees have a number of far more local countries whose official religions follow those faiths, whereas Christians living in Syria have nowhere nearby to go does have some merit. It is true that the persecution of the Christian minority in many parts of the Middle East means that local asylum is not necessarily an option. In such a case, shouldn't western nations whose attitude towards faith is more liberal offer them succour?

  One solution to the problem would be an international organisation for resettling displaced people, which could then ensure that the refugees are distributed fairly among nations and only relocated to countries where they will not face further persecution. In the meantime, the political dangers and moral difficulties over restricting asylum to Syrian Christians means that the best option is to take the refugees as they come, perhaps giving priority to those not of the Islamic faith but not ruling out Muslim refugees. 

  One thing is clear though - however we choose to progress, the UK must do more to help the Syrian people, as must those other Western countries whose governments opted not to offer any asylum places at all. If not, we risk sacrificing what little credibility we have on an international stage, particularly in the Middle East itself. The West has already begun two destructive wars in the region, and is responsible in no small part for the instability that now plagues it. We have now a chance to redeem ourselves, if only partially. Fail to take it, and the diplomatic consequences will be dire.

  The human cost of failure is simply too awful to contemplate.