Labour MP launches devastating attack on Blair...just wish he did the same for other 'freedoms.'

A Labour MP of principle prepared to stand up and be counted on the issue of 'freedom.'...but I can't remember such a cry when Hackney greengrocer, Colin Hunt, faced the oppression of the Metrication Police over his freedom to obey an Act of Parliament as opposed to a European Directive.

Subject: Prevention of Terrorism Bill
- devastating attack by Labour MP Hansard
23 Feb 2005 : Column 366
Mr. Brian Sedgemore (Hackney, South and Shoreditch) (Lab):

As this will almost certainly be my last speech in Parliament, I shall tryhard not to upset anyone.
However, our debate here tonight is a grim reminder of how the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary are betraying some of Labour's most cherished beliefs. Not content with tossing aside the ideas and ideals that inspire and inform ideology, they seem to be giving up on values too.

Liberty, without which democracy has no meaning, and the rule of law, without which state power cannot be contained, look toParliament for their protection, but this Parliament, sad to say, is failing the nation badly. It is not just the Government but Back-Bench Members who are to blame. It seems that in situations such as this,politics become incompatible with conscience, principle, decency andself-respect.
Regrettably, in such situations, the desire for power and position predominates.As we move towards a system of justice that found favour with the South African Government at the time of apartheid and which parallels Burmesejustice today, if hon. Members will pardon the oxymoron, I am reminded thatour fathers fought and died for liberty ­ my own father literally ­believing that these things should not happen here, and we would neverallow them to happen here. But now we know better.
The unthinkable, the unimaginable, is happening here.
In their defence, the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary say that they are behaving tyrannically and trying to make nonsense of the House ofLords' decision in A and Others as appellants v. the Home Secretary as respondent because they are frightened, and that the rest of us would befrightened too if only we knew what they will not tell us.

They preach the politics of fear and ask us to support political incarceration on demand and punishment without trial.
Sad to say, I do not trust the judgment of either our thespian PrimeMinister or our Home Secretary, especially given the latter's performance at the Dispatch Box yesterday. It did not take Home Office civil servants or the secret police long to put poison in his water, did it?

Paper No. 1, entitled "International Terrorism: the Threat", which the Home Secretary produced yesterday and I have read, is a putrid document if it is intended to justify the measure. Indeed, the Home Secretary dripped out bits of it and it sounded no better as he spoke than it read.
Why does he insult theHouse?
Why cannot he produce a better argument than that?
How on earth did a Labour Government get to the point of creating what was described in the House of Lords hearing as a "gulag" at Belmarsh?
I remind my hon. Friends that a gulag is a black hole into which people are forcibly directed without hope of ever getting out. Despite savage criticisms by nine Law Lords in 250 paragraphs, all of which I have read and understood,about the creation of the gulag, I have heard not one word of apology from the Prime Minister or the Home Secretary. Worse, I have heard no word ofapology from those Back Benchers who voted to establish the gulag.Have we all, individually and collectively, no shame? I suppose that onceone has shown contempt for liberty by voting against it in the Lobby, itbecomes easier to do it a second time and after that, a third time. Thus even Members of Parliament who claim to believe in human rights vote todestroy them.Many Members have gone nap on the matter. They voted: first, to abolish trial by jury in less serious cases; secondly, to abolish trial by jury inmore serious cases; thirdly, to approve an unlawful war; fourthly, tocreate a gulag at Belmarsh; and fifthly, to lock up innocent people in their homes.It is truly terrifying to imagine what those Members of Parliament will vote for next.I can describe all that only as new Labour's descent intohell, which is not a place where I want to be.I hope that ­ but doubt whether ­ ethical principles and liberal thoughtwill triumph tonight over the lazy minds and disengaged consciences thatmake Labour's Whips Office look so ridiculous and our Parliament sounprincipled..It is a foul calumny that we do today. Not since the Act of Settlement 1701has Parliament usurped the powers of the judiciary and allowed the Executive to lock up people without trial in times of peace. May the Government be damned for it.
ends