The media has rightly devoted a lot of time and attention today to the fact that David Cameron’s authority was challenged by over 90 Conservative backbenchers who supported an amendment to the Immigration bill to make it harder for foreign criminals to avoid deportation by appealing to the European Court of Human Rights on the grounds that their right to a family life would be infringed.

The BBC’s Nick Robinson does a good job of unpacking the ludicrous exercise in Game Theory that led the various Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat factions to adopt their particular stances:

The home secretary believes that a proposal to give her stronger powers to deport foreign criminals is illegal, unworkable and may, in fact, lead to fewer deportations.

So, Conservative ministers have been ordered by the prime minister not to oppose it.

Yes, you read that right.

Despite all of the above David Cameron has told his troops to abstain rather than face headlines about a massive Tory revolt. He is said to be sympathetic to the aims of the backbench rebels who have refused to back down.

I personally fail to see why the Home Secretary or any elected politician should be personally involved in deciding deportation cases, in much the same way that I find it bizarre that they can determine whether or not to release prisoners serving life sentences. These matters should be non-political and sit with the judiciary, and while I am in favour of deporting foreign criminals I would much rather achieve this end by empowering judges and allowing them to apply clear legislation stating that criminal conviction of a non-citizen would result in the rescinding of the right to reside in the UK than by conferring even more powers on the Home Secretary to make life-and-death decisions over individual cases. But this is by the by.

The chicanery and slapstick attempts by the Home Secretary Theresa May and the party leadership to first outmanoeuver and then placate the rebellious backbenchers, some of which I personally witnessed from the public gallery of the House of Commons, are certainly newsworthy. But there is a real danger that the story will be framed as being primarily about Cameron’s leadership, or the potential impact of intraparty fighting on the Conservatives’ prospects at the next election, when something much more fundamental is also taken place. Namely, the fact that the bill, as it stands, would give government the power to strip a naturalised British citizen of their citizenship on the mere suspicion of being engaged in terrorist conspiracy.

The Guardian reports:

[Deputy Prime Minister Nick] Clegg said he supported the home secretary’s proposal to strip naturalised British citizens of their citizenship if they are judged to present a threat to national security. It would even apply to those who have no other citizenship, rendering them stateless.

He said the current laws had become a “passport for endless games in the courts to prevent people being deported that should be.

“We are tightening up the way the courts can interpret article 8, the right to a family life, so it cannot became an excuse for unjustified legal procrastination.”

Speaking on LBC’s Call Clegg, he added he knew the plan to make some naturalised British citizens stateless was controversial, but justifiable in a very small number of cases. He said the revocation of British citizenship “would apply in cases where individuals pose a real threat to the security of this country”.

“Judged” to present a threat to national security, but not convicted of any crime by a jury to back up the allegation. Perhaps this is just the inevitable next step given the fact that the British government for a long time also advocated control orders to keep terrorism suspects in a state of legal and personal limbo without giving them full legal due process.

Of course, Nick Clegg is eager to assure us that any cases of citizenship revocation will be extremely rare and only conducted in the gravest of circumstances – but since those circumstances would always be opaque to the general public, any words that he utters in support of this draconian and inhumane measure can be distilled into the much shorter phrase “just trust me”. He has given the British public no good reason to do so. And if the number of cases is really so small, what exactly is the compelling reason that they cannot have their day in court to determine their guilt or innocence of conspiring to commit terrorist acts? By Clegg’s own admission it certainly can’t be concern for the workload of the courts.

Fortunately the ever-watchful eye of Liberty, the National Council for Civil Liberties, picked up on what is happening and issued a stern public rebuke to the government, for what little good it will do:

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: “Liberty always said that terror suspects should be charged and tried. First politicians avoided trials for foreign nationals; now they seek the same for their own citizens.

“This move is as irresponsible as it is unjust. It would allow British governments to dump dangerous people on the international community, but equally to punish potential innocent political dissenters without charge or trial. There is the edge of populist madness and then the abyss.”

It is tragically ironic that, if the bill passes in its current form, the law will grant a convicted foreign criminal the right to remain in the UK and avoid deportation because of a fictitious invented “human right” to remain with their family in a country not their own, while a legal, naturalised British citizen merely suspected of a terrorism offence stands to have their British citizenship revoked, potentially rendering them stateless.

Surely this is one civil liberty infringement and constitutional idiosyncrasy too far, even for our increasingly draconian, secretive national security State?

 

Note – The BBC’s Mark D’Arcy has an excellent explanation of the parliamentary rules and procedures which influenced the outcome of today’s parliamentary antics. The bill is currently at Report stage, the only opportunity for the entire House of Commons to debate the bill in detail and propose amendments, and at this stage it is essentially left to the whim of the Speaker, John Bercow, to determine which amendments are debated and vote on in the limited time available. If this doesn’t seem to you like quite the best way to scrutinise and amend new legislation, you are not alone in your thinking.