Well what a remarkable week we have had at Westminster – who said politics is boring! Just seven days ago the Government appeared to be heading for defeat over their proposals to extend the detention of terrorist suspects to 42 days when up popped 9 Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) MP’s to save their bacon. Now the DUP almost always supports the Conservative Party in the Commons so you can imagine this did not go down well with David Cameron who scented a first government defeat under Gordon Brown’s premiership.

Accusations of bribery and secret deals were rife. Would £200millions of water rates stay in Northern Ireland rather than come to the Treasury? Of course not said Gordon – this was a vote of principle! Few really believe either the DUP or the PM but we await the long term outcome. The relief on government benches at winning the vote had hardly subsided when up popped David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary to say he was resigning his Yorkshire seat to fight a by-election on the issue of freedom! Almost immediate both the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party said they would not be fielding candidates so it was left to the former editor of the Sun, the Monster Raving Looney Party and other single issue groups to make sure there was a contest. No doubt when local residents pick up the £80,000 bill for the election they might just question why they have to foot the bill for what after all is a much broader fight.

Meanwhile back in the mad house (I mean Parliament) another surprise was in store again caused by the Irish – not the DUP but voters in the Republic who said NO to the Lisbon Treaty on Europe! When a government minister was asked why his Irish friends had deserted him so soon he replied “They are the wrong sort of Irish!”. What ever sort they were they have certainly put the cat amongst the pigeons. The Prime Minister has been desperately trying to deny the obvious - that the Lisbon Treaty cannot be ratified without the Ireland either signing up or leaving the EU! To simply pretend that we can proceed as before was more akin to Zimbabwe or other ‘banana republics’ but now it seems at Westminster.

Complicated? Well things are set to become even more tense next week as MP’s return to the thorny issue of their pay. Now I have always thought it barmy for MP’s to vote on their own pay and allowances – these must be set independently with Government not having the power to reduce or MP’s the power to increase the independent award. Incidentally I believe the same about all public sector workers – which is why the attempt to deny police officers their full award this year was disgraceful.

However in true Commons style, having got an independent expert to look at the issue of pay and suggest broadly what I think is a sensible way forward – the Prime Minister announced he and his Ministers will not accept the award! So we appear back to square one.

We are also back to square one with our ability to deal with the fight against extremism following the release of Abu Qatada by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission whose own Chairman described Qatada as ‘a truly dangerous individual’. Here is a man whose fanatical sermons may well have influenced attacks on New York and London yet we can neither deport him to Jordan nor keep him in custody pending trial. Instead he was released on bail with a security surveillance bill of £500,000, an electronic tag and an order not to contact Osama bin Laden by mobile phone!

I suspect for many readers there is a sense of incredulity about this decision and for me as life long libertarian an increasing difficulty in balancing the rights of individuals with the rights of society to expect a government to protect them from known extremists.

If the Haltemprice and Howden by election achieves anything perhaps an examination of the balance of our individual and collective civil liberties would be useful.

End.

Phil Willis MP
Harrogate Advertiser,
June 2008