#control orders

Nine years ago the Tory government (in conjunction with their junior partners the Lib Dems) scrapped control orders for terror suspects.

Can you guess what the results were?

Now, it seems, The Tories are clamping down on terror suspects and terrorists released from jail to clean up the mess of “the previous government”

Except...... they are the previous government.

Don’t let them lie to you. Don’t let them cover up their past. Don’t let them rewrite history and persuade you that it was Labour that messed things up.

The Tories got themselves - and our country - in to this situation.

Britons in Syria and Iraq should be presumed guilty says Boris Johnson

Nik Darlington 6.32am

It carries no legally binding obligations. While the Government is being supportive of its intent, ministers do not have to follow it. However, tonight MPs will vote on the following motion:

"That this House notes the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights in Hirst v the United Kingdom in which it held that there had been no substantive debate by members of the legislature on the continued justification for maintaining a general restriction on the right of prisoners to vote; acknowledges the treaty obligations of the UK; is of the opinion that legislative decisions of this nature should be a matter for democratically-elected lawmakers; and supports the current situation in which no prisoner is able to vote except those imprisoned for contempt, default or on remand."

There are some unhelpful misconceptions doing the rounds about the votes for prisoners controversy, the most disingenuous of which is that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is riding roughshod over British sovereignty by demanding that all prisoners are granted voting rights. The penalty for non-compliance being a raft of compensation claims via Strasbourg.

First, the Government has made it very clear that were it even to contemplate carrying this out - and through gritted teeth - not all prisoners would be allowed a vote. Ken Clarke stated on the Today programme yesterday that it was "nonsense" to think of votes for murderers and rapists.

Secondly, the ECHR ruling is not plenary. David Blackburn at the Spectator's Coffee House wrote yesterday that a number of EU nations strip prisoners of the vote and still observe European law. The ECHR requires clarification, not necessarily the policy itself.

So some sober perspective is desperately needed on this highly emotive issue. Saying that, it is to be hoped that MPs back the tabled motion tonight and the Government follows their lead, because this should not have anything to do with human rights.

Consider control orders, now under the farcical nomenclature of "terrorism prevention and investigation measures", or Tpims, which sounds like a caffeinated summer cocktail. In vain, I supported their abolition because I believe that they do infringe human rights and natural law. The imposition of a control order - sorry, a Tpim - takes away someone's inalienable rights.

On the contrary, not granting prisoners the vote does not infringe their human rights because you are not taking any right away. The vast majority of prisoners hold no voting rights now. I will go further than that, even. No single person, not even a prisoner, has a right to vote. It is a philosophical point but an important one. We are not born with a right to vote anymore than we are born with a right to live in a democracy. Incontrovertibly, such a condition is desirable. It is Locke's 'civil society', living under a consensual government. But Locke does not say how we choose that government. We have a natural right to liberty but not to a vote.

Sources on the Conservative backbenches are confident that this motion shall pass. The Prime Minister agreed yesterday, saying, "It's in our interests for Parliament to say 'No thanks.' That helps us." Even so, that is no guarantee that the Government will maintain the status quo.

Control orders and their so called ‘replacement’ have been all the rage on Twitter today. The curfews have been replaced with “overnight residence requirements”. Meanwhile I have replaced my marmalade with jam that’s made from oranges. What’s great though, is the response of the Green Party. Caroline Lucas (@CarolineLucas) tweets:

Struggling to see much difference between "curfew" of old control order & "overnight residence requirement" of new regime - bit Orwellian...

Criticising the government’s policy and at the same time having a go at the uselessness of the official opposition. Remind you of any particular party pre-May 2010? That’s right the Greens are the new third party. This is good – a truly distinct party, unlike the Lib Dems.

Wow. Sterilisation, deportation, the death penalty.... My God! Is this what thirteen years of authoritarian Labour rule brought us to? In the apparent absence of anyone from the libertarian wing of the Tory party on this thread, allow me to stand up for our millennium-old right to due process (something that should be hard wired into the DNA of any natural Tory but is clearly not a priority for the majority of commenters here, or indeed Mr Moore, who should know better). If, as would have been the case had the parliamentary Party had the minerals to vote for him instead of the spineless "Heir to Blair", David Davis would almost certainly be Prime Minister today, in a Conservative government with an overall majority, which would mean three things: 1. We would be well on our way to a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, if not on our very membership of the "European Empire" (José Manuel Barroso). 2. We would therefore be looking into a near future where we would regain control of our national sovereignty and hence our own borders. 3. We would be far closer to the end of our calamitous entanglements in the Middle East than we are to the beginning, thus addressing the fundamental grievance of all but the most ardent islamofascists. Does anyone seriously imagine that Roshonara Choudhry would even have heard of Anwar al-Awlaki if the above were the case? Control Orders are illiberal, unconstitutional, and un-British. They should be ended with all possible dispatch, with the collection of Fabian schemers and eugenicists who conceived them consigned to a dim but slightly nightmarish memory. And finally, a word from our sponsor....

Those who would trade in their freedom for their protection deserve neither. Benjamin Franklin