IPPR have just published the final report from the Commission on National Security in the 21st Century. It makes a lot of recommendations and number ninety-nine on their list is this.
The Government should put a draft Constitutional Bill of Rights and Responsibilities for the United Kingdom before Parliament.
Such a Bill, if passed into legislation, would put the law more firmly at the disposal of those with a grievance, would be good for strengthening trust in our system of government and valuable in the attempt to win hearts and minds among those tempted to support or sympathise with terrorism. It should, in other words, be seen as a major element in a political strategy designed to make us more secure, more socially resilient and more united.
I could not agree more. It’s all well and good challenging Islamists and their ideology, but presenting a purely negative strategy will not achieve a self-confidently pluralistic, cohesive, good-natured British society. We must also make clear what values we stand for, why we stand for them and how they apply to everybody. What better way could there be to do that than to make them into law.
Not only that, but the bill could only come out of a public debate about what rights we actually have as Britons. Rather than focusing on the negative by discussing whether the burqa is acceptable in Britain, we’d be making a meaningful positive statement about what it means to be British.
This discussion would also encourage a public awareness of what “rights” really mean. It could set down what legal rights actually are and rule out spurious non-rights: the “right” not to be offended and the “right” to have your religious views respected chief amongst them.
So yes, let’s have a British Bill of Rights and not only will we protect our civil liberties from the incessent New Labour assaults, but we’ll have an invaluable tool for preventing radicalisation.
2 Comments
I don’t think that the problem is really the political system itself or the lack of a single written constitution. The recent political crisis has rather arisen because individual MPs believe that their position somehow entitles them to enrich themselves at the expense of the hoi polloi.
Also, can you imagine what a constitution written by a committee composed of the present tranche of back-stabbing MPs and impotent, spineless, boot-licking bureaucrats would look like? Such a constitution would undoubtedly be more likely to inspire apathy than any feelings of belonging, pride or collective vision.
Entirely true. And I don’t much fancy the coming Tory dominated parliament for such a delicate task either.