The arrest of Damian Green MP

Friday, 28 November 2008

 The arrest of Damian Green MP

Thursday was a busy day for me so blogging went by the wayside. However it seems to have also been a busy day for counter-terrorism officers from the Metropolitan Police. Not content with having around 200 suspected terror networks under MI5 and Police surveillance and a security services source recently claiming...

"We are not chasing shadows. These are potential threats to security and life. Police and the security network are operating at full capacity."

they nonetheless found time to drive over to Kent and arrestConservative Shadow Minister for Immigration and Honourable Member for Ashford, Damian Green MP. I admit to having been profoundly shocked that a senior Conservative MP could be involved in a terrorist activity or plotting attacks on the UK.

As if things are not bad enough with Islamist lunatics aspiring to kill as many of us as possible, it appeared that we now have Parliamentary frontbench spokesmen yearning to spill our blood in a mindless orgy of brutal violence. But then it transpired that his arrest was on suspicion of "conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office". Despite my best efforts I am struggling to recall that offence ever having been used to bring, say, IRA terrorists to book.

What we have seen today is the clearest example yet of legislative mission creep. Anti Terror legislation that was supposedly designed to enable the police and security services to prevent murder and mayhem on our streets, in our buildings, our trains and buses and in the skies above, extends its tentacles to ensnare a Member of Parliament for having the temerity to reveal to the public information the government has conspired to withhold from the public. Are the police now to be used by the government as a tool to keep inconvenient revelations of Ministerial failings and information that is politically unhelpful under wraps?

This is so much more than a farce. This police action is a deeply disturbing and unwittingly or otherwise is a warning shot across the bows of our parliamentary democracy. Clearly nothing has been learned from the disgraceful incident at the Labour party conference in 2005 involving 82-year-old Walter Wolfgang, who was detained under misused Anti Terror laws for daring to heckle Jack Straw. What next? Will David Cameron now be arrested and questioned for daring to tell the House that Labour plans to increase VAT to 20%?

Nothing that Damian Green has supposedly been given by a whistleblower, as reported in the press, has any bearing on our national security. Damian Green should not only be released of his bail and told he is no longer required to present himself to the police in Februrary, but should also receive a full and humble public apology from the Metropolitan Police for the embarrassment caused to him.

After that, the Conservatives should use one of their opposition days in the House to expose and highlight how Anti Terror legislation is being abused by police officers, councils and other agencies to help them get around limits to their power that seem to frustrate them - and call for the legislation to be rewritten properly to do the job it is supposed to do.