Counter-Terrorism Bill

My Lords, as a former police commissioner I support the aims of the Bill and most of its proposals. I certainly respect the views of noble Lords who have spoken with such passion and clarity in support of the extension of detention without charge. However, after much deliberation and consultation with my police friends still involved in the fight against terrorism, I cannot in all conscience support the proposal to extend detention without charge for up to 42 days. I set out my concerns previously in your Lordships’ House when we debated and rejected proposals for even longer periods of detention without charge. In summary, I thought then and believe now that such proposals, even with the new safeguards, are disproportionate, counterproductive and divisive, as well as an unnecessary distraction from the more important task for all of us of developing a coherent strategy to combat extremism and terrorism. Two weeks ago, I was on business in the Gulf region, where I spend quite a lot of time. During that period the Saudi Arabian police carried out raids, arrested several hundred suspects and seized copies of an important new book, Governance in the Wilderness, written by al-Qaeda’s chief theoretician, Sheikh Abu-Bakr Naji. Why is that book relevant to our debate today? Because it is the clearest and most contemporary manifesto statement of the jihad against us. We certainly need to understand the changing aims of the movement generically known as al-Qaeda to ensure that our counterterrorism proposals and legislation are relevant and will make things better rather than worse. Sheikh Abu-Bakr Naji argues that the world struggle against us has been under way since the fall of the Ottoman empire and the abolition of the Islamic caliphate in 1924. He and others like him argue that only after 9/11 did the world wake up and realise that it was witnessing a world war about ideas, lifestyles, philosophies and religions that would be played out for decades if not centuries. He advocates turning the world into a series of wildernesses where only those under jihadi rule enjoy security and everyone else fears for their safety. Their long-term war against us is not about toppling a Government, running a country or restoring the Taliban to control in Afghanistan; it is about creating parallel extremist Islamic societies in all countries with Islamic communities and, through attacks and acts of terrorism, making our daily lives unbearable and unsafe. This is why the proposal to extend detention without charge is flawed and counterproductive. Sheikh Abu-Bakr Naji argues that to sustain this campaign without end the jihadi movement must be divided into five concentric circles of activity. The first, the largest and most important is traditional Muslims in all countries who, although not personally violent, are prepared to give moral and, if necessary, material support to the militants. Our strategy—our legislation—to combat terrorism must also speak to and resonate with the same concentric circle of good, traditional Muslims in the forthcoming decades or perhaps even centuries of world war for hearts and minds and philosophy. While al-Qaeda seeks to encourage the Muslim majority to accept and even support violence, we must encourage the same majority to reject violence and the extremist minorities. That is why the 42-day proposal may well be counterproductive and a propaganda gift to the extremists, who will group it with Guantanamo Bay, extraordinary rendition and alleged tortures to seek to influence the majority of good, traditional Muslims—and, in particular, young men—to acquiesce in violence or, at worst, to participate in those violent acts. The 42-day proposal, even with the checks and balances that others have spoken about, undermines our moral authority to win the battle for hearts and minds that the Prime Minister has acknowledged is central to the long-term success in countering terrorism. All the wasted time and energy expended on the debate about extending detention without charge is a debilitating, divisive and counterproductive distraction from our real task, which is to put in place a meaningful strategy and legislation to deal with the long-term struggle against extremists and their propensity for terrorist acts throughout the world. It is for that reason, even though I have enormous respect for those who have argued the other way, that I must argue against and will not support the proposal to extend detention without charge to 42 days.