Some people refer to the unpopular Labour Government as "New Labour" or "NuLabour", or, to draw parallels with the evil dictatorship of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe as "ZANU Labour".
Most people with an interest in politics in the UK take this joke / mild insult in their stride, but surely even members of the Labour party must feel scared by the news that the Conservative MP Damian Green, their frontbench Home Affairs spokesman on Immigration, has been arrested by the Metropolitan Police, and has had his homes and offices searched, including his office at the Palace of Westminster, by "Counter Terrorism Police".
Counter-terrorism police arrest Conservative frontbencher
The police action followed the arrest 10 days ago of a government employee who had allegedly leaked four documents to Green, who in turn passed them to the press. They were:
• A home office memo, which appeared in the Daily Mail on 13 November 2007, which showed that the home secretary Jacqui Smith had been warned four months earlier that thousands of illegal immigrants had been cleared to work in sensitive Whitehall security jobs. The memo emerged days after the Sunday Mirror disclosed that at least 5,000 illegal immigrants had been cleared by the Security Industry Authority to work sensitive Whitehall locations.
• An email to the then home office minister Liam Byrne in February this year which showed that he was informed about an illegal Brazilian immigrant who faked an identity pass to working parliament. The memo, which was published in the Sunday Telegraph on 10 February this year, said Byrne was informed on 31 January. Byrne was accused of a cover up.
• A list of Labour MPs who were likely to rebel against the government's plans to detain terror suspects for up to 42 days without charge. This appeared in the Sunday Times on 20 April 2008.
• A letter from Jacqui Smith to Gordon Brown warning that a recession would lead to a rise in crime. This appeared in will papers, including the Guardian, on 1 September this year.
None of these stories involved any breach of security, only political embarrassment for the incompetent Labour party politicians.
The BBC in that intensely annoying way of theirs, have almost completely re-written their report of this story, but kept the URL the same Senior Tory arrested over leaks - new window">Senior Tory arrested over leaks
They quote a statement from the Metropolitan Police Service (which does not, of course, appear on the Met's website):
"The investigation into the alleged leak of confidential government material followed the receipt by the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) of a complaint from the Cabinet Office.
"The decision to make today's arrest was taken solely by the MPS without any ministerial knowledge or approval."
There was no need to waste scarce "Counter Terrorism Police" resources on this blatantly political investigation. Are ordinary Policemen no longer capable of searching an office ?
It is irrelevant whether or not Gordon Brown or any other senior Labour politicians were aware of Thursday's arrest beforehand, or not, they are to blame politically.
This affair also reflects badly on Sir Paul Stephenson, the deputy to Sir Ian Blair, who is taking over as Acting Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service. If he is seen to be continuing Sir Ian Blair's NuLabour political policing style, then he must not be allowed to be promoted into that job full time.
We strongly suggest that any other Home Office or Treasury etc. whistleblowers, and any investigative journalists, bloggers or opposition politicians should read our Hints and Tips for Whistleblowers and Political Activists - Technical Hints and Tips for protecting the anonymity of sources for Whistleblowers, Investigative Journalists, Campaign Activists and Political Bloggers
Some Obvious Questions:
- What is the name of the Metropolitan Police officer in charge of this political investigation ?
- Who exactly complained of an alleged criminal offence by Damian Green ? The Cabinet Office instigated the original "Leak inquiry", but who decided to arrest Damian Green rather than just have a informal chat with him, or even like former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, during the far more serious "cash for honours" inquiry, a private interview under caution ?
- Did Damian Green give permission for his Palace of Westminster office and Constituency office to be searched , or this a breach of Parliamentary Privilege ?
- Is this search of an opposition MP's office, a party political abuse of power by the (Labour) Speaker of the House of Commons ?
- Have the Metropolitan Police taken copies of privileged documents or emails etc. to or from Damian Green's Constituents, which have nothing to do with these alleged whistleblower leaks ?
- Have the Metropolitan Police snooped on the Communications Traffic Data of Damian Green's personal and Constituency and Conservative Party political emails, mobile phone and landline phone calls and messages, in order to try to identify his contacts with journalists and / or the alleged Home Office whistleblower(s) ?
- Have the Metropolitan Police intercepted the contents of Damian Green's personal and Constituency and and Conservative Party political, mobile phone and landline phone calls and messages ?
- Where does this leave the Wilson Doctrine ? Has it been secretly changed, again, to permit political snooping and harassment, under the transparently feeble excuse of "prosecution of crime" ?
- Has Damian Green been fingerprinted, photographed and DNA tissue sampled ?
Common Purpose Fabians of the Yard doing the politicians’ bidding:
Common Purpose police
The parallels with what Labour are doing today and what the Nazi's did in 1933 Germany are becoming more and more clear. Using terror legislation (Reichstag Fire) to clamp down on opponents and the use of protective custody. Arresting political opponents, Green is the first.
Using the terror narrative to bring everything back to the UK, Mumbai is an 'attack on all of us' according to Miliband. In the 30's it was the communists attacking the Nazi state. Things are very worrying
Where is the law? The powerful now own the law.
Read Craig Murray's good piece on this The Jackboots Are On the Move
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2008/11/the_jackboots_a.html
Re Question 5. It would appears to be yes.
From http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2008/nov/28/damian-green
(From theory to personal experience in a week: http://gizmonaut.net/blog/uk/damian_green_data_owned_by_the_police.html)
br -d
The Damian Green incident is similar to one that began the civil war. Are we now so supine as to allow this one to pass unchallenged.? I urge you to petitition our parliament to impeach the Prime Minister
Revisionista keeps track of changes to online news articles. Here's the BBC one:
http://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/178410/diff/0/1
Telegraph article may enlighten us some more:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/lawreports/joshuarozenberg/3534362/Why-Tory-MP-was-arrested.html
I agree with T. H Taylor. The Prime Minister With his well known control freakery has allowed a very importent line to be crossed. This abuse of power must be opposed at all costs-our basic freedoms are at stake.MPs must be able to hold governments to account and i hope the Conservative Party will use every possible avenue to protect the sovereigntyof Parliament.
What can we do to protest?
This is a serious question, by the way.
I've written to my MP, but it doesn't seem very much.
A protest rally in Trafalgar Square? If violent crusties could be persuaded to stay away, I'd be there.
A couple of comments at this article of Iain Dale's suggest that in the past a case like this involving politicians would have been investigated by Special Branch, but they've been subsumed under Counter Terrorism Command, and CTC now hold that responsibility. They are misnamed in that they're not solely concerned with counter terrorism.
I think Dale's list of questions on this is excellent.
Q1 What is the name of the Metropolitan Police officer in charge of this political investigation ?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/3534787/Jacqui-Smith-under-pressure-over-Damian-Green-arrest.html
Q 4 Is this search of an opposition MP's office, a party political abuse of power by the (Labour) Speaker of the House of Commons ?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/3534787/Jacqui-Smith-under-pressure-over-Damian-Green-arrest.html
What use is Michael Martin as a guardian of Parliamentary democracy, if he failed to prevent this search of an MP's office, within the Parliamentary Estate, as a matter of principle ?
He was quick enough to invoke Parliamentary Privilege and intervene in the High Court to help the Labour Government to try to suppress our Freedom of Information Act request:
High Court upholds OGC appeal against Information Tribunal and suppresses publication of the Home Office ID Cards Gateway Reviews, on grounds of "Parliamentary Privilege"
Not sure where to place Smith's statement that it all happened without ministerial involvement or authorisation.
It's hard to tell from the TV whether she was upset or angry.
Is the Home Sec not ultimately responsible for the Police? Is she claiming a defence of having lost control?
If Green's stuff has been confiscated, does this not pretty much put him out of action until it's all over? Not just as shadow cabinet member but also MP? At the very least he can't now get any case histories etc?
I had not seen the official press release on this until just now.
According to the bible of politics, "never believe anything until it has been officially denied" - can't remember if it was Humphrey or Bernard who said it though...
I think we're lacking a central, online meeting-place for organising resistance and promoting a free society.
The difficulties with this are:
1. Who should be in charge and how should they be funded?
2. What should their remit be? My belief is that they should stay independent of groups like NO2ID, as fine an organisation as that is. Rather they should provide a forum to offer assistance to new and existing campaigns without letting it be dominated by Indymedia types. But how far does it go? Does it cover campaigns like eg legalisation of cannabis?
As far as what one person can do, getting letters in newspapers is the main thing. Here's a list of email addresses for newspapers:
http://forum.no2id.net/viewtopic.php?t=2601
They Thought They Were Free
The Germans 1933-1945
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html
An excerpt from
They Thought They Were Free
The Germans, 1933-45
Milton Mayer
But Then It Was Too Late
"What no one seemed to notice," said a colleague of mine, a philologist, "was the ever widening gap, after 1933, between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was to begin with, here in Germany. And it became always wider. You know, it doesn’t make people close to their government to be told that this is a people’s government, a true democracy, or to be enrolled in civilian defense, or even to vote. All this has little, really nothing, to do with knowing one is governing.
"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.
"This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.
Silencing opposition - the "politics" or fascism of New Labour?
Updated my blog.
This is obviously the Policing we can now expect - the sort that does what the Government tells it.
So expect that knock on your door if you dare oppose these pseudo nazis backed up by their own Stasi.
Chris Close
http://www.a-i-darlo.com
Announced Today by the BBC
Alan Milburn to set up "Civilian Security Force" using military trainers, civil servants, police officers, judges and other logistical staff.
Beware, The State is now arming itself against it's own citizens
LINK
@ James May-not : You're going to need all the "violent crusties" you can muster.
In the last seven years you've had two examples of regime change by violence. And one of the failure of democracy in Britain.
If it hadn't been for crustie violence in central London you'd be paying the Poll Tax today. Tommy Sheridan was jailed for his part in the resistance campaign in Scotland. Are you prepared to go to jail??
If you are serious about your question, you'll stop sitting at your monitor and get out and start talking to your neighbours.
Following a potentially interesting line of thought, I looked at some of the questions Damian Green has been asking in Parliament recently.
There's a bunch of relatively 'expected' questions, and amongst those as yet unanswered, on stands out as being very 'directed' as it were. I'm torn as to whether this relates to blank passports or not. I may also be overthinking this. Or underthinking.
Q 239339
Damian Green (Ashford): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what checks her Department and its agencies make on the immigration status of couriers working within her Department and its agencies; whether her Department requires courier companies to notify the Department if they discover among their employees an illegal worker who has worked handling documents on behalf of the Home Office and its agencies; and how many illegal workers have been discovered working for such couriers in each of the last three years.
Heh. If you want to see 'unanswered', there's stacks from Dominic Grieve to the Home Sec asking 'when she will answer Question number nnnnn'...
The arrest of Damian Green is a good thing. An MP is being treated just like the rest of us. It highlights a cultural shift. Every aspect of life is being increasingly monitored and catalogued. There’s an expectation that, when someone transgresses, no matter how slightly, they can expect to be brought to book. I’m thinking of things like road traffic offences here, failure to submit a SORN correctly, etc. But, it’s all the way up the scale. The government expects you to present your defence to a court for having material that could be useful to a terrorist, forgetting encryption keys, asking about a police officer or possessing an image that might be ‘extreme porn’. Because of the instruction the police are receiving from this government, they naturally have an increased tendency to arrest first, ask questions later. If Damian Green did ask a junior Home Office official to provide him with inside information, he can present his public interest defence in court.
Rather than try to change the oppressive legal culture this government has fostered, I fear they will do what they so often do in situations like this. They will inoculate themselves from the problem they have created. I can imagine a new bit of statute, a Protecting Parliament Act, that stops MPs from being arrested for less serious matters. If it doesn’t carry the possibility of, say, five years imprisonment, you can’t arrest an MP for it.
@ William Brennan the arrest of Damian Green is not "a good thing", regardless of the fact that it might wake up some MPs. across the political spectrum, who have allowed the Executive branch of Government and the Bureaucracy to become too powerful and effectively unaccountable the public.
By the time you are unlucky enough to actually appear in Court, it is too late for your privacy and security - your DNA, fingerprints photographs and all your private paper and electronic records will have been seized and rifled through, regardless of whether you are found not guilty or not.
That is already a massive punishment, especially if you are then forever tainted as having been "suspected of terrorism", according to secret UK and foreign Government computer systems.
@ Old Holborn - Alan Milburn is "only" a NuLabour backbench MP, what influence do you think he has within Gordon Brown's Downing Street bunker ?
Some answers to some other questions you haven't asked (yet):
Statement from Mr Christopher Galley’s solicitor (Mr Galley is the civil servant who "was arrested by antiterrorist officers in a dawn raid at his home on
19th November. He was held under arrest at a police station for 17 hours and only released after exhaustive questioning by police.")
Damian Green's daughter's details should now be on the MERLIN database and she likely had to go through a Pre-Assessment Checklist.
br -d
@ David - That statement implies that Christopher Galley has not yet been charged with anything.
http://www.bindmans.com/index.php?id=467
Re question 9: Some news sources say he did have DNA taken others say not. I rang the Met's press office (0207 230 2171) and they said "we don't comment on that" (why I wonder!).
I have submitted a FOI request and will blog it when a response is received.
Some other answers (more or less to Q4 and Q6):
Mr Speaker (Hansards - temporary URL):
Acting Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson statement:
br -d
@ Geeklawyer - it will be interesting to see which of the many Exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act 2000, they use to deny you and the public the information you seek.
At a guess, they will try to use:
and / or
Section 31: Law Enforcement