Commons boost for Brown

Ian Craig

June 11, 2008

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GORDON Brown has narrowly won a crunch House of Commons vote to extend the maximum time police can hold terror suspects to 42 days – despite a major Labour revolt.

A total of 37 Labour MPs voted against the controversial move and critics vowed to continue their campaign against the plan – which is likely to be rejected in the House of Lords.

Among the Labour MPs who rebelled against the government in the key vote last night (WEDS) were former minister Michael Meacher, the MP for Oldham West and Royton, and Gordon Prentice, MP for Pendle.

MPs approved the Counter Terrorism Bill – including controversial moves to extension of detention without charge for suspects from 28 to 42 days – by a slim majority of just nine. It was passed by 315 MPs to 306 votes.

Last night’s vote was a crucial test for the embattled Prime Minister and was won only after weeks of arm-twisting by government Whips and orders to some ministers to fly back from trips abroad.

If the Bill had been defeated in the Commons, thrown out last night Mr Brown would have faced calls for his resignation – as Tony Blair did when he lost a similar plan, but for 90 days’ detention, in 2005.

Support

With the help of Unionist MPs, who agreed to support the government only 15 minutes before the vote, Mr Brown survived to fight another day. But the 42-day detention plan is unlikely to become law.

MPs were told before the vote that they could afford to abstain because the House of Lords would throw out the legislation anyway.

The vote on the proposal to extend pre-charge detention of terror suspects to 42 days came after a series of concessions, with Home Secretary Jackie Smith offering, at the 11th hour, to pay compensation to suspects released without charge after being held for the extra time.

A range of other concessions were offered to MPs in a bid to stave off one of the biggest rebellions in Gordon Brown’s leadership.

Even before the vote, Shadow Home Secretary David Davis predicted that the government would win – but the majority was smaller than had been predicted.

Cheers rang out as the result was announced to a packed chamber after a rowdy debate and the Speaker Michael Martin had to intervene to restore order.

What do you think? Have your say.

Articles

Late bid to win 42-day vote

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Showing comments 1 to 17 and replies | View All

Grief Tourist, Tameside (11/06/2008 at 19:15)

No time is long enough when there's no evidence.

Karney for head of GMPTA(formerly MC Spanner) (11/06/2008 at 19:35)

But at what cost? What did the DUP get from the government in order for Gordon Brown to save his hide?

Hardly a show of stregth when you have to rely on another party to save face.

Mr Manchester (11/06/2008 at 19:37)

6 weeks detention compared to 2 days in those good ol' terrorist/Miidle East bashers, the US of A.

Mental Health Nurse, Swinton (11/06/2008 at 22:48)

This is something that goes against the very principles of a free democracy. Even the paranoid USA could never bring in such draconian legislation as it would be challenged in the courts because of their written constitution. We have Magna Carta, drafted in AD 1215, countering some excesses of the government, but this government just rides roughshod over it. I shudder for the future of Britain, because today, George Orwell's nightmare vision of a Britain under a totalitarian regime has just moved one step closer.

free_lunch, sale (11/06/2008 at 23:55)

Good bye Habeous Corpus hello, greeting to the Stasi, If Gordon can win this he can win anything and that is scary.

John 01, heywood (12/06/2008 at 00:01)

this going to be down fall for gordon brown, as this is goint to alienate the muslim communities, how do you compensate for being detained for 42 days, when you have a family / morgage / work, etc, etc, as it has been proved many times that the information for detainment, is flawed on the baisis that the information was incorrect in the first instant, detainment should only be allowed under the authority of the judical system, and not basied as another guttanomo bay detention, we did not require these new laws when the IRA was active, and we don't need these now, my advise to mr brown, the writing is on the wall, leave now or face the backlash of the muslim communities at the next election,

Voter (12/06/2008 at 06:58)

This number of 42 will come to haunt Gordon Brown. He has just saved his bacon on the 42 weeks. Reverse 42 and you have 24, the number of weeks that laughing Labour MPs allow abortions to be carried out. Labour won that abortion vote, hence the grinning Labour MPs, but it cost them the huge majority in the Crewe by-election later that week. That was the week that everyone knew that Labour were finished.

Black Flag (12/06/2008 at 10:17)

If somebody had told me ten years ago that John Major's government would prove to be more progressive than anything that followed it for a decade, I would have thought they were mad.

This is truly frightening.

polkyb (12/06/2008 at 12:01)

"This is truly frightening"

You said it. Since Thatcher started to use advertising as a way to promote policy, the media has been manipulated by politicians with agendas as a means to force policies through and sway public opinion. Take the smoking ban and the road pricing policies.. The truth is out there, but the press aren’t telling it, they are ONLY printing material released by the state.

New labour learned from 18 years of tory tinkering and then Blair took it to a whole new level.

Until we (the people) can regain control of the press (including this rag) we really are doomed.

Marc (12/06/2008 at 12:39)

"This number of 42 will come to haunt Gordon Brown"

on the plus side its the answer to life, the universe and everything.

every cloud, eh?

Black Flag (12/06/2008 at 12:39)

polkyb, I think the idea that: "the media has been manipulated by politicians with agendas as a means to force policies through and sway public opinion." is the wrong way round.

The way that New Labour cosied up to Rupert Murdoch in order to get favourable coverage shows that, in many respects, it is the media that is manipulating the politicians.

I don't accept that the MEN is somehow massively biased. I disagree with a lot of what is in the paper, but that's just to be expected. A lot of what is in the paper IS based on government/local authority press release material, but if I had to fill a newspaper every day and somebody sent me two pages of material, I'd be very tempted to use it. I don't think that is necessarily a sign of bias.

As for the idea that the MEN has been massively biased in favour of the congestion charge, I don't think that's true at all. In fact, I saw a blog posting from the Greater Manchester Cycling Campaign some time ago, which accused the MEN of being covertly biased AGAINST the congestion charge, because they carried a front page headline along the lines of "Manchester Says No," when the poll being quoted showed that something like 59% of those surveyed would support the charge if it resulted in Metrolink extensions.

If people with opposing viewpoints both think the MEN is biased in favour of the opposition, then the paper's probably being fairly even handed.

free_lunch, sale (12/06/2008 at 13:19)

This has cost millions in bribes, err sorry, subsidies to get the votes in. If Gordon has to rely on a bunch of foriegn right wing MPs to to get this through it is a sad day for labour. seems to me that the US are telling Gordon what they want and that is enough time to send suspects to Morocco or Syria to be tortured and the returned with no marks showing.

polkyb (12/06/2008 at 13:50)

I agree that "The way that New Labour cosied up to Rupert Murdoch in order to get favourable coverage shows that, in many respects, it is the media that is manipulating the politicians."

However, Mrs T. was the first to start using the media to convince us all that we'd be best off boing something that we wouldn't normally... British Gas, national water, national grid, BR, etc. All very well presented advertising campaigns.

So while I'll admit that the papers can't be gagged, the traffic flowing back to parliament from national papers is almost always ignored (fuel tax, road pricing petition, road tax, etc.) and even the 10p tax debacle has been sorted out in such a way that the lowest paid are still fairly screwed.

I've often thought that in this modern age, MPs should canvas their employees (us) through a web based voting system when there are big issues like this one... If you don't use your vote, then you can't complain when nowt goes your way.

Problem with TiF is that the measures are going to be around LONG after these MPs and councilors are gone, so, the only really fair way would be a referendum... but like Sir Richard says, we're all too stupid to understand the question.

Black Flag (12/06/2008 at 14:10)

polkyb, I am firmly of the opinion that referenda are a thoroughly pathetic and mindless way of making decisions and I oppose them for anything other than constitutional matters.

They destroy the democratic process in a number of ways:

Firstly, they allow politicians to duck out of making tough decisions, like the Tories in Bolton. If they’d backed the congestion charge, they would have lost votes, if they’d opposed it, they would have faced an attack on their environmental credentials, so they used a referendum as a way of weaselling out of coming off the fence.

Secondly, if you start having numerous referenda, there is no way the public can give enough time to properly studying the issues, so decisions become ill considered and possibly contradictory.

Thirdly, they allow politicians to shirk responsibility when things go wrong, because they can always point to the fact that a lot of the public policy decisions weren’t made by them.

The Nazi’s loved referenda, because they knew they could use them to give the impression of democracy, while killing all meaningful debate.

polkyb (12/06/2008 at 14:44)

"polkyb, I am firmly of the opinion that referenda are a thoroughly pathetic and mindless way of making decisions and I oppose them for anything other than constitutional matters."

I am aware of your loathing of such things, however, democracy isn't working at the moment, because the politicians have gone on a power trip. Who knows when they'll be back, but I suspect that, in the meantime, we're in for some really bad times being inflicted upon us.

I'm not going to get into this debate again with you, I know your stance from previous discussions, and you know mine differs. I wouldn't try to change your views or opinions, as that would make me New Labour :-)

Black Flag (12/06/2008 at 15:03)

polkyb: "democracy isn't working at the moment, because the politicians have gone on a power trip."

That I agree with. I think what we need to rectify that, rather than referenda, is a strong written constitution which gives a clear definition of what politicians can do and what is none of their business.

didarunna2spain, Tarragona Spain. (12/06/2008 at 15:07)

Marc. To make things even more freaky,strange things have happened to the dolphins!

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