Blair defeated over terror laws

[drain.you]

Blair defeated over terror laws

Prime Minister Tony Blair has lost the key House of Commons vote on plans to allow police to hold terror suspects without charge for up to 90 days.

MPs rejected the plans by 322 votes to 291 - a bigger than expected majority of 31. It is Mr Blair's first defeat since Labour came to power in 1997.

The defeat will be seen as a blow to the authority of Mr Blair, who said MPs had a "duty" to support the police.

MPs later backed a compromise detention time limit of 28 days.

Labour has a majority over other parties of 66 but the defeat does not mean Mr Blair will have to stand down as prime minister - something he has said he will do before the next election.

Liberal Democrat frontbencher Simon Hughes said the defeat marked a "momentous day" which could bring forward Mr Blair's departure from office.

"It was a major error of judgement and it undermines Mr Blair's chances of staying on," said Mr Hughes.

'No police state'

The Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and some Labour backbenchers said the 90-day plans went too far.

Civil liberties groups compared the proposal to internment - a charge rejected by ministers.

In his final plea for MPs to back the plans, Mr Blair urged MPs to take the advice of the police who had foiled two terrorist plots since the 7 July attacks in London.

In heated exchanges at prime minister's questions, Mr Blair said: "We are not living in a police state but we are living in a country that faces a real and serious threat of terrorism."

Ministers tried to reassure waverers by promising that the new laws would expire unless MPs renewed them in a year's time.

Conservative leader Michael Howard warned that the detention plans could alienate ethnic minority communities.

Shuttle diplomacy?

Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy said the measure would almost certainly be defeated in the House of Lords, where two ex-law lords had called it "intolerable".

The prime minister admitted he could lose the vote but argued: "Sometimes it is better to lose and do the right thing than to win and do the wrong thing."

In a sign of the importance given to the vote, Chancellor Gordon Brown was called back within minutes of arriving in Israel for a high profile visit.

And Foreign Secretary Jack Straw also flew back early from EU-Russia talks in Moscow.


BBC News Website

[RebelOutcast]

It's nice to see that the house of commons doesn't like to see civil liberties abused too much.

[Ric_god]

Haha, go f*** yourself Mr.Blair. Go join the concervatives.

[RedGeorge]

All we need now is a vote of 'no confidence' and that right-wing turd and his champagne-socialist cronies will be gone for good. :D

[Intifada]

It is plain for everybody to see how Tony Blair is trying his hardest to turn this country into a police state with the use of a phony pretext of "national security".

There was no justification behind the proposal to detain "terror suspects" for 90 days, other than "the police are asking for it".

[TheLiberal]

Unfortunately there will be no automatic action taken on Mr Blair's authority since it was not a confidence vote however there are certainly going to be some tough questions asked.

Had this vote was not on some crucial part of Blair's reform agenda, real damage would have been done. This was simply following a 'recommendation by police', not policy created by government.

[bolshevik butcher]

Yeh, it was good to see that labour still has some left wingers fighting in parliment.

As for mr libreal, do you think it's alright to detain people without evidence? Because your party supported detaining people for 28days, so its not good for 90 but alright for 28?

1 day is too many.

[TheComrade]

1 day IS too many, yes! I am glad, however, that Mr Stuck Up, Neo-Con, I'm so great everyone shall remember my 'legacy' Blair got a thrashing!!

[kingbee]

Originally posted by Clenched [email protected] 9 2005, 07:16 PM
Yeh, it was good to see that labour still has some left wingers fighting in parliment.

As for mr libreal, do you think it's alright to detain people without evidence? Because your party supported detaining people for 28days, so its not good for 90 but alright for 28?

1 day is too many.
are you sure he is a lib dem...?

anyways, does anyone know the last time there was a commons defeat?

[Ric_god]

My "legacy"! I supported the murder of hundreds of thousands of foreigners under false reasons.

Yea... nice one

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Originally posted by [email protected] 9 2005, 05:38 PM
It's nice to see that the house of commons doesn't like to see civil liberties abused too much.
Yeah instead of 90 days, they chose 28... :rolleyes:

[drain.you]

The last time there was a government defeat in the commons was 10years with a tory government according to the news before. This is the first time Blair's government has been defeated since they came to power back in 1997.
I would like a vote of confidence and make him go back to the country but he would probably still get labour back in power. He will be gone in the next 18months anyway since he has to hand over the power to a new leader a decent amount of time before the next election.

[tatu]

Sorry for the delay. I realise that this news is a day late.

Tony Blair says his authority is intact despite suffering his first House of Commons defeat as prime minister.

He said he hoped MPs "do not rue the day" they rejected his call to allow police to detain terror suspects for up to 90 days without charging them.

MPs voted against by 322 votes to 291, with 49 Labour MPs rebelling, but later backed a proposal to extend the detention time limit to 28 days.

Conservative leader Michael Howard said Mr Blair should resign.

Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy warned Mr Blair could become a "lame duck" leader.

Following the defeat MPs backed by 323 to 290 votes a Labour backbench MP's proposal to extend the detention time limit to 28 days, from the current 14 days.

Authority

Mr Blair, who is planning to quit as prime minister before the next election, has said he will serve a full third term.

But Mr Howard said the vote had "so diminished" Mr Blair's authority that he should quit now.


I think it was a wrong decision - I just hope in a longer time we don't rue it
Tony Blair
Prime minister


And Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy said Mr Blair would be seen as a "lame duck" leader unless he realised he could not behave in a "quasi-dictatorial way".

"If he doesn't, then increasingly his premiership is becoming a John Major premiership, at the mercy of events, at the mercy of opposition, not just from other political parties but from within his own," said Mr Kennedy.

But Mr Blair told the BBC he did not believe the vote would affect his position as prime minister.

'Wrong decision'

"I don't think it is a matter of my authority - of course I would have preferred to have won rather than lost," he said.


COMMONS VOTES
90 days' detention time limit: Defeated by 322 votes to 291, majority 31
Backbench compromise of 28 days' detention: Passed by 323 votes to 290, majority 33


He said the police had told him the case for the 90-day detention proposal was "vital" and "compelling".

It had been his duty to put the plan before MPs and it had been their right to vote against it, he said.

But, he said: "I think it was a wrong decision - I just hope in a longer time we don't rue it."

He said people would think it was "very odd" that given the advice of the police and security services, MPs had "decided to ignore their recommendation".

'Angry Blair'

Instead they had voted for a 28-day detention limit which "they have thought of themselves" without any particular justification, he said.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke said he had not suspected until half an hour before the crucial vote that the government might lose.

But he said the prime minister had not been "foolhardy" in pressing for the 90-day plan - and the defeat would make him want to go on longer in the job rather than quit.

"He's feeling angry that this important proposal for the security of the nation was not carried by Parliament and cross at our failure, my failure, to actually get across to all of our parliamentarians the scale of the issues involved," he said.

And the idea that the defeat had weakened Mr Blair's position was "quite wrong" because the proposals were not "at the core" of the government's counter-terrorism plans, he added.

'No police state'

Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil rights group Liberty, said she was "heartened" that MPs had defeated the 90-day plan.

In his final plea for MPs to back the plans, Mr Blair urged MPs to take the advice of the police who had foiled two terrorist plots since the 7 July attacks in London.

In heated exchanges at prime minister's questions, Mr Blair said: "We are not living in a police state but we are living in a country that faces a real and serious threat of terrorism."

Ministers had tried to reassure wavering Labour MPs by promising that the new laws would expire the Commons renewed them in a year's time.

Other concessions included promising scrutiny of the detention process by a High Court judge.

In a sign of the importance given to the vote, Chancellor Gordon Brown was called back within minutes of arriving in Israel for a high profile visit.

And Foreign Secretary Jack Straw also flew back early from EU-Russia talks in Moscow.

Later, in a separate vote, the government's majority was reduced to 25 when MPs backed the inclusion of "glorification of terrorism" in the Terrorism Bill.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/uk_p...ics/4422086.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/uk_politics/4422086.stm)

Published: 2005/11/09 23:12:40 GMT

© BBC MMV

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=42577

a thread on this was made.. in fact, it's 2 posts down from this one.

[drain.you]

Dude, that link is to this page :P

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

That's because I posted it on a thread made by Tatu which was merged into this one.

[MiniOswald]

Im somewhat confuzzeld by it all, it was obvious that it would never pass, so why put it to a vote....