Melanie Phillips complains that objections to the new anti-terrorism bill “betray more than a touch of hysteria and irrationality”. In contrast to her own balanced and reasoned contributions the debate, that is. According to Mel:
“The unpalatable fact is that this country has left itself wide open to terrorism. The judges pose as our society’s bulwark against tyranny. But frankly, they are the very last people upon whom we can rely. For with their obsession with ‘human rights’, it is the judges who have imperilled our safety by turning Britain into a magnet for terrorists and subversives. Through their interpretation of human rights law they have destroyed our border controls so that extremists could pour into the country knowing they would never be pursued.
“The judges frustrated all attempts to deal with illegal immigration, thwarted other countries’ desperate attempts to get Britain to extradite terrorist suspects, produced the lunatic situation where people who are a danger to this country cannot be deported in case they may be ill-treated, and when the government tried to lock them up instead to safeguard the public ruled that this too was contrary to human rights law….
“Other countries are far more robust. France has recently thrown out a number of Islamist extremists without demur. Even ultra-liberal Holland is planning to ban the burka in public places – following the example of several towns in Belgium and Italy – because a garment which conceals everything except the eyes obviously makes identification impossible and is therefore an unacceptable security risk.”