In the same week that Sun journalists were subjected to dawn raids at home, the British justice system released one of the leading ideologues of al-Qa’eda to walk the streets.
The fact that Abu Qatada should never have been here in the first place, having arrived in 1993 on a forged passport, is not a minor point. He has cost this country much in expense and security. He is said to be connected to terrorist jihadist groups in the UK, Egypt, Algeria, Jordan, Tunisia, Iraq, Indonesia, Italy, Belgium, Morocco, Libya, France, Afghanistan and Sweden — in 2007, the Special Immigration and Appeals Commission described his influence as ‘formidable, even incalculable.’
But in the late 1990s, when Qatada was in his prime, there was little state appetite to prosecute radical Islamic clerics, whose ideology had not yet shown itself to be a grave threat at home as well as abroad. UK terrorism legislation was also, back then, incomplete and shoddy.
When the Labour government tried to remedy this they found themselves only partially able to do so. For by that point the government had incorporated into British law the European Convention on Human Rights. They swiftly discovered the Convention and its court in Strasbourg to be incapable of reaching sensible judgments in matters of national security. Time and again, the rights of foreign terrorists and criminals to, for instance, enjoy ‘a family life’, overrode the rights of British people not to have dangerous terrorists among them.
Much criticism of the Labour government’s security policy was the direct result of measures instituted as (in the words of one former Labour security minister) ‘not even our second or third best option’ but forced upon them by judgments from Strasbourg. The fact which Labour could never admit, but which this government must, is that if the government does not run the country, then it cannot fix it.
There are only four options available. The first is that we decide, as a small number of highly paid professional-interest lawyers and ‘human rights’ lobbyists insist we must, that having signed up to the Convention we must accept all judgments of the Court. Needless to say, when the law is widely recognised to be an ass then the likelihood of this public recognition being suppressed for eternity by legal special interest groups is slight.
Secondly, we could stay within the jurisdiction of the Convention but break Court rulings on this and similar extreme occasions. Other countries, most notably Italy, have done this. If we ignored Strasbourg we would receive, as Italy has, a stern rebuke from the Court. But nothing further can be done: the Court does not currently possess an army.
Third, we could renegotiate our relationship with the Convention. This suggestion, which has been put forward across the political spectrum, may in time sort out Qatada-like situations. But it would not solve the problem of Qatada himself, because the likelihood of unanimity being reached among the 47 members of the Council of Europe within the lifetime of any man, let alone an overweight extremist, is slim.
And so we see the attraction of the Prime Minister’s pre-election logic, which is that this country should repeal the Human Rights Act (which enforces the Convention) and form a British Bill of Rights. Yet even this would leave us subservient to the Court. Only removing ourselves from the Convention would permanently solve not only the Qatada problem but all such future dilemmas.
Of these four options, only the first is appealing to the Liberal Democrat faction in the government. But only the last three are — if public opinion polls are to be believed — remotely acceptable in the country as a whole; more than two thirds of voters believe that Strasbourg has too much power and 70 per cent of people want Qatada deported regardless.
This government needs to solve not only the specific problem of how to get Abu Qatada out of this country, but the problem of why he could get stuck here at all. In the long term, the country must address Britain’s relationship with the Convention by defying it, renegotiating it or getting out of it. The Spectator understands, however, that the Prime Minister seeks to hold the coalition government together to solve the debt and deficit nightmare bestowed by the last government. To push the Liberal Democrats beyond what would be almost certainly a breaking point for them would not be in the interests of the country. But the PM can solve this.
It will require a degree of political bravery, but that is something which this magazine believes the Prime Minister to possess. In the long term, this country must take the third option. But to solve the more immediate Qatada problem, Cameron must show that he is the Prime Minister of Great Britain before he is an underling of European judges. He should explain that, loth as he is to do it, Strasbourg has given him no other option. A plane must be booked, Jordan must be sent this menace, and we will finally be rid of a man who should never have been here in the first place.
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