Palestine Action ban reveals Labour's dangerously authoritarian instincts
The biggest threat to our safety could be Labour’s deep-rooted authoritarian streak
“Why can you not just be Labour?” It is a question I have been asked since I was a teenager, often by Labour friends in an exasperated tone.
It is not an entirely unreasonable question. In many areas of policy on health, education, transport etc, Labour and Liberal Democrats seek broadly similar outcomes and, the argument goes, our electoral system punishes the centre left for splitting.
The question, however, ignores the fact that sometimes what matters in politics is the first principles from which you start. For all the similarities between Liberal Democrats and Labour, the differences matter too.
Labour has centralising instincts that will always be anathema to liberals who champion community empowerment. Then there is the freedom thing.
Labour’s socialist roots remain
Scratch any Labour government and you will find a deep authoritarian streak. It is increasingly apparent that this is every bit as true of Yvette Cooper’s Home Office as it was of those headed by David Blunkett, John Reid and Jack Straw.
We hear talk of introducing digital ID cards (with no consideration of how to protect the data held). Now live facial-recognition technology is to be rolled out on our streets with no thought given to how it is to be used and against whom.
Labour may no longer style themselves as socialists but their roots in a politics that expects government to control the people are there for all to see.
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For liberals, protecting freedoms of speech, assembly and protest is a given. It runs to the heart of how we see the relationship between the citizen and the state. For Labour, these freedoms are rarely more than ‘nice to have’ when circumstances allow.
So it was that last weekend we saw the Metropolitan Police’s finest in hand-to-hand combat with the serried ranks of retired teachers, social workers and academics armed with placards proclaiming their opposition to genocide – something that would be uncontroversial in most normal times – and their support for Palestine Action (which seems to be the sticking point).
Palestine Action’s unacceptable tactics
Let me make a few things clear at this point. I am not a supporter of Palestine Action. The tactics that they employ in protesting against government policy on Palestine are wrong-headed and counter-productive.
Targeting military installations for acts of vandalism is not an acceptable tactic to promote the Palestinian cause. It does not, however, make you a terrorist organisation and the decision to proscribe Palestinian Action was disproportionate and a mistake. That proscription would lead to the sort of scenes that we witnessed at the weekend was inevitable.
Using anti-terror legislation to arrest peaceful protestors is not just illiberal and oppressive. We give government extra power to tackle terrorism and trust them to use it for that. Anti-terrorism laws should be used to deal with terrorists, not our own citizens who wish to demonstrate their disagreements with their government.
Ultimately the biggest threat to our safety could turn out to be Labour’s authoritarian instincts.
Alistair Carmichael is Liberal Democrat MP for Orkney and Shetland
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