Opinion: Civil liberties

Why you should vote against David Davis by Peter Tatchell.

In resigning from parliament to re-fight his East Yorkshire seat, David Davis set out to give the country the opportunity for a debate on civil liberties. He has, undoubtedly, succeeded; but did he expect to be on the side of illiberalism?

Probably not. And yet, of the two candidates of major parties contesting the seat of Haltemprice and Howden, it is Davis who is defending a series of authoritarian positions, including some that are positively medieval, against a genuinely liberal challenge from the Green Party.

And that is why we had to stand in this election. If the country is to have a debate about civil liberties, it cannot be framed by David Davis so that the debate's liberal terminus is the police's right to imprison you for a month without telling you what you are supposed to have done.

People need the choice in this by-election to say that defence of civil liberties means rolling back the draconian innovations of the Labour government, not just negotiating on how quickly or slowly they should continue.

Greens vocally opposed the extension of pre-charge detention to 28 days. David Davis spoke in favour. And he offers no Damascene conversion: one of his first blogs in the present by-election campaign attempts to justify his illiberal position.

It's a matter of principle, he says: the principle that we should hold suspects without charge for no longer than necessary. He then goes on to explain that the police recently judged it necessary to detain suspects for 21 days, so that makes 21 days a principled response. But best throw in another week just to be on the safe side.

By this logic, Davis will change his mind and support 42 days just as soon as a police officer wants to use that power. And longer still whenever the anecdotal evidence suggests it. But, he insists, it is a matter of priciple.

The threats to our civil liberties, though, do not end with pre-charge detention. This government has determinedly advanced the rights of the state at the expense of the rights of the individual, with a criminal justice bill every year and a terrorism bill every two. Throughout the worst of Labour’s authoritarianism, they could count on Davis' support. He voted to preserve the ban on demonstrating near parliament. He voted for ID cards (before he voted against them), and his party will not endorse the NO2ID campaign. He voted to continue 'control orders' – house arrests for people who have not been charged with an offence and which can last a lot longer than 42 days.

But the man who would be the voice of British liberalism even managed to make Labour look like the defenders of liberty when he supported Section 28, the law that made it a crime for a school to call a gay couple with children a family, or even to tell gay children that they weren't abnormal. He voted against equalising the age of consent for young gay men. He voted to preserve the criminal offence of blasphemy. He led the attack on the Human Rights Act, calling the rights within 'spurious', and pledging to abolish it.

Davis does, perhaps, lean moderately toward the liberal wing of the Conservative Party. But that's a little bit like saying a man leans toward the pro-Europe wing of UKIP. He is not a civil libertarian.

We do the cause of liberty in Britain an enormous and lasting disservice if we accept that the debate on civil liberties is between 42 days and 28 days now-but-maybe-more-later. Between David Davis and Gordon Brown.

So the Green Party had to stand in this election in order to give the country the choice to look beyond the authoritarian consensus across the dispatch boxes.

Shan Oakes is standing against David Davis for genuine civil liberties: no more anti-terrorism laws that undermine British democracy and, with freedom undermined, do the killers' work for them. Complete, uncompromising commitment to equality in matters of sexuality, race, religion, ability or disability, gender and age. A justice system that responds to the people's need for safety, not the papers' need for revenge.

Two parties are committed to dismantling our historic liberties, one is committed to barely anything at all. David Davis has given us the opportunity to change that – by voting against him. For that, at least, we ought to be grateful.


Peter Tatchell is the Green Party candidate for Oxford East and spokesman on Human Rights

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