Let's defend our way of life, not just our lives.
Total safety is incompatible with an open society. That's why I can't support 28-day detention

If anything is the centrepiece of the coalition Government, it is the focus on defending the liberty of the individual and the integrity of our judicial system. It has come not a moment too soon. The past couple of years have seen the crumbling of the authoritarian extralegal apparatus that the previous Government set up as the foundation of its counter-terrorism strategy. Every element of it has come under pressure.

For example, the secret courts that issue control orders have been overruled many times, sometimes because the control orders have been too draconian, sometimes because the Appeal Court thought there was plenty of evidence to prosecute suspects in open court. Even in practical terms, the control-order regime has failed, managing to lose seven terrorist suspects, probably the most dangerous ones.

Similarly, the serial abuse of stopand-search powers by the police has been checked. After hundreds of thousands of British citizens were subjected to these "counter-terrorist" actions, the European Court ruled their use excessive, and last week the Government had to restrict them.

On a more gruesome note, the co-operation and/or complicity of British Intelligence agencies with foreign governments who use torture has come in for excoriating criticism in the courts. Again, David Cameron had little choice but to announce an investigation into this assault on our national honour.

The previous Government's heavy-handed, authoritarian strategy was taking us in the opposite direction to most of our allies. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the issue of detention without charge, which is being debated in the House of Commons today. Even after the defeat of Labour attempts to impose detention without charge for 90 days, then 42 days, we still have, at 28 days, the longest detention time in the civilised world. Canada gets by with one day, America with two.

The longest detention period in a country with a similar legal system to ours is 12 days, in Australia. That country was scarred by the Bali bombing, has the biggest Muslim state in the world as a neighbour, and is tough-minded about terrorism. Yet it is currently reducing its maximum detention without charge to eight days. The only real debate is whether even that is too long. But today our Government will seek to extend the 28-day rule for another six months, a decision I shall vote against.

To be fair, Theresa May, the Home Secretary, has stated clearly that she is using the six months to review many aspects of counter-terrorism policy, including control orders and detention without charge. She has made it clear that she views 28 days as temporary. Nevertheless, there is a fear that this is simply a rearguard action being fought by those in the Home Office and parts of the police force who do not want to give up their powers. That fear is grounded in the fact that we do not need six months to prove this policy a failure. It is already evidently a counter-productive disaster.

When John Reid was Home Secretary he tried to persuade me that he needed a longer detention time to deal with the crisis that would arise if our agencies were overwhelmed by multiple attack of multiple targets, and multiple suspects. Well, as luck would have it, we had a rehearsal of just such an occurrence within a few months. The Heathrow bomb plot of 2006 targeted ten airliners, had very large numbers of suspects in several places, and was triggered by events outside the control of the authorities.

The consequence of this operation was that five suspects were held for 27-28 days. Three were judged to be innocent and were released. Two were charged, but the evidence on which they were charged was in both cases available well within the old 14-day limit. Even so, after a further 18 months of trying to find evidence, the case of one was dismissed by the judge, and the other was found not guilty by a unanimous jury verdict. Five people, 28 days, and no convictions.

The only effect of this heavy-handed law was to create resentment and suspicion within the communities from which the five came. Our biggest problem in dealing with terrorism today is the increase in radicalisation of young Muslims and the lack of intelligence co-operation from the Muslim community. A 28-day detention makes both much worse.

Extended detention without charge is the most prominent example of the State forgetting that it is not just our lives that it is defending, but our way of life. The cost of attempting to achieve absolute security is not just many more billions of pounds that we cannot afford, but the sacrifice of liberty which diminishes our civilisation. The understandable intention to prevent loss of life should be tempered with an appreciation that total safety is impossible in an open society.

The coalition has promised that its counter-terrorism strategy will be principled, effective and based on the rule of law. By cutting down the unnecessary 28-day detention without charge, it will signal its intent to keep that promise.

This article appeared in The Times on 14 July 2010.