Author Topic: Brown wins crunch vote on 42 days  (Read 942 times)

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Amianthus

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Brown wins crunch vote on 42 days
« on: June 14, 2008, 08:07:48 PM »
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has narrowly won a House of Commons vote on extending the maximum time police can hold terror suspects to 42 days.

Thirty-six Labour MPs joined forces with Conservatives and Lib Dems to vote against the proposals.

But that was not enough to defeat them - although the government still faces a battle in the House of Lords.

The 42-day proposal was passed by 315 MPs to 306 - with votes by the nine DUP MPs proving crucial.

Six SNP MPs also voted against the proposal, as did three Plaid Cymru MPs and three from the Northern Ireland-based SDLP.

But there was uproar in the Commons as the result of the key vote on 42 days was announced after five hours of tense debate - with Tory and Lib Dem MPs shouting "You've been bought" at the DUP benches.

They claim the DUP was offered a string of inducements - including extra financial help for Northern Ireland - to guarantee its support.

Labour rebels claimed the DUP had obtained guarantees that the government would block efforts to use the Human Embryology and Fertility Bill, currently going through Parliament, to loosen abortion rules in Northern Ireland.

They are also said to have cut a deal to keep revenue from water rates, which Westminster had been set to claw back.

But the DUP denies it was promised any financial support and insists it voted out of principle.

DUP MP Rev William McCrea said: "The issue was on national security."

Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward told the BBC: "There was no deal. There is no deal. They decided on principle. They made up their own minds."

For the Conservatives, shadow home secretary David Davis the government had lost the argument "hands down" but had "bought the vote".

And he vowed to fight it in the Lords - predicting the 42-day proposal would never become law.

"It has no authority, it has no legitimacy and it will be thrown out," he added.

Lib Dem home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said the manner of Labour's victory had been "astonishing" - and for them to rely on the DUP to get such a crucial vote through the Commons would "have been laughed out of court a few weeks ago".

The sole Ulster Unionist MP, Lady Hermon, voted with the government.

'National security'

Home Office minister Tony McNulty acknowledged the government still faced a battle to get 42-day detention on to the statute books.

"I accept fully that I continue to have a real job with some 30 or so of my colleagues to show that this is the way to go, that this is proportionate and accords with civil liberties and democracy.

"I don't profess it [the 42-days proposal] to be in a perfect state yet."

He added that he wanted to talk to Labour colleagues and opposition MPs to see "how this reserve power can be put through both houses in a consensual fashion."

Keith Vaz, Labour chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, defended Home Secretary Jacqui Smith for offering concessions to MPs in an attempt to win them over.

"That is the nature of government. How dreadful it would be that the government should decide on a particular course of action and then not consult with anyone else," he said.

Tony Lloyd, chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, said the result leaves the government "very much in tune with what the nation wants" and accuses other parties of acting "opportunistically".

And Lord Carlile, the government's independent reviewer of anti-terror legislation, said he was "satisfied that Parliament has done the right thing".

But one of the Labour rebels, John McDonnell, said: "Any attempt to present this as some sort of victory for the government will ring absolutely hollow.

"There will be widespread consternation among our supporters in the country seeing a Labour government prepared to use every tactic available in its determination to crush essential civil liberties, which have been won by the labour movement over generations."

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Religious Dick

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Re: Brown wins crunch vote on 42 days
« Reply #1 on: June 16, 2008, 02:40:15 AM »
 BBC NEWS
In full: Davis statement
Here is the full text of the statement David Davis read out to reporters announcing his resignation:

The name of my constituency is Haltemprice and Howden. The word Haltemprice is derived from the motto of a medieval priory, and in Old French it means "Noble Endeavour".

I had always viewed membership of this House as a noble endeavour, not least because we and our forebears have for centuries fiercely defended the fundamental freedoms of our citizens. Or we did, up until yesterday.

Up until yesterday, I took the view that what we did in the House of Commons representing our constituents was a noble endeavour because with centuries or forebears we defended the freedoms of the British people. Well we did up until yesterday.

This Sunday is the anniversary of Magna Carta - the document that guarantees that most fundamental of British freedoms - Habeus Corpus.

The right not to be imprisoned by the state without charge or reason. Yesterday this house decided to allow the state to lock up potentially innocent British citizens for up to six weeks without charge.

Now the counter terrorism bill will in all probability be rejected by the House of Lords very firmly. After all, what should they be there for if not to defend Magna Carta.

But because the impetus behind this is essentially political - not security - the government will be tempted to use the Parliament Act to over-rule the Lords. It has no democratic mandate to do this since 42 days was not in its manifesto.

Its legal basis is uncertain to say the least. But purely for political reasons, this government's going to do that. And because the generic security arguments relied on will never go away - technology, development and complexity and so on, we'll next see 56 days, 70 days, 90 days.

But in truth, 42 days is just one - perhaps the most salient example - of the insidious, surreptitious and relentless erosion of fundamental British freedoms.

And we will have shortly, the most intrusive identity card system in the world.

A CCTV camera for every 14 citiziens, a DNA database bigger than any dictatorship has, with 1000s of innocent children and a million innocent citizens on it.

We have witnessed an assault on jury trials - that balwark against bad law and its arbitrary use by the state. Short cuts with our justice system that make our system neither firm not fair.

And the creation of a database state opening up our private lives to the prying eyes of official snoopers and exposing our personal data to careless civil servants and criminal hackers.

The state has security powers to clamp down on peaceful protest and so-called hate laws that stifle legitimate debate - while those who incite violence get off Scot free.

This cannot go on, it must be stopped. And for that reason, I feel that today it's incumbent on me to take a stand.

I will be resigning my membership of the House and I intend to force a by-election in Haltemprice and Howden.

Now I'll not fight it on the government's general record - there's no point repeating Crewe and Nantwich. I won't fight it on my personal record. I am just a piece in this great chess game.

I will fight it, I will argue this by-election, against the slow strangulation of fundamental British freedoms by this government.

Now, that may mean I've made my last speech to the House - it's possible. And of course that would be a matter of deep regret to me. But at least my electorate, and the nation as a whole, would have had the opportunity to debate and consider one of the most fundamental issues of our day - the ever-intrusive power of the state into our lives, the loss of privacy, the loss of freedom and the steady attrition undermining the rule of law.

And if they do send me back here it will be with a single, simple message: that the monstrosity of a law that we passed yesterday will not stand.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7450899.stm

Published: 2008/06/12 13:22:17 GMT

? BBC MMVIII
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