Lord Carlile delivered a sensible speech last night which again made the case for control orders, as well as an enhanced ability to deport foreign terror suspects. The Conservatives and Lib Dems have already been forced to issue control orders against al-Qaeda operatives Abid Nasser and Faraz Khan, despite being highly critical of them when out of government.
Lord Carlile is spot on. As long as the European Court
of Human Rights prevents us from deporting terror suspects, and we
remain unwilling to ignore the Court's direction (as Italy has done on numerous occasions on this issue), we are reliant on control orders to safeguard national security. This is something I outline in a forthcoming Centre for Social Cohesion report, and have discussed in this week's Weekly Standard.
However, the system is not ideal, and two facts have emerged recently which should make the new government pause for thought. First of all, of the 12 individuals still under control order, 10 are now British citizens.
It is worth remembering that control orders were introduced primarily
for foreign terror suspects that could not be deported (specifically
those detained without trial at Belmarsh prison). The government should
be clear that the home grown threat is
such that control orders are required for British citizens as well.
Secondly, in Lord Carlile's speech, he says that “Getting rid of control orders would be too dangerous in four or five cases. In those cases there is robust intelligence of serious terrorist intent and it would be dangerous to have them uncontrolled and on the streets.”
But if getting rid of control orders is only too dangerous in "four or five cases", does that mean they can be got rid of in the other seven or eight that are still in force? I presume that this is not what Lord Carlile means - and having seen a lot of the control order documentation used in court, I think he understates the problem. The vast majority of those under control order are clearly extremely dangerous.
No amount of political posturing or internal reviews by the new government is going to change this, so if it is going to make good on its pledge to scrap control orders, it needs to have an extremely effective alternative lined up. Allowing intercept evidence is not the answer - government reviews have shown time and time again that it would not make a bit of difference to current control order cases - and we have already shown that we are going to remain in thrall to the European Court of Human Rights. So what is the answer? I'm sure I'm not the only one doubtful the government actually has one.
