Government bites dust deliciously. posted by Richard Seymour

Government defeated by 31 votes:

Tony Blair has suffered his first defeat after MPs rejected his plan to allow police to detain terror suspects without charge for up to 90 days.
MPs rejected the plans by a bigger than expected margin of 322 votes to 291, before later backing a 28 day limit.

The defeat came despite Mr Blair saying MPs had a "duty" to support the police.

Tory leader Michael Howard said Mr Blair should resign after failing to "carry his party" but Downing Street says it was not a confidence issue.

The extraordinarily hectoring campaign run by Blair and his Rupert Murdoch-employed cohorts deserved a thorough hiding, and it got it. The government's argument essentially boiled down to two points: 1) the public back us; 2) we're supporting the police. That was it. The former was based on a blatantly rigged poll, but far more importantly, neither claim was actually an argument for supporting the law. And the government didn't dare try to venture one.

The reason for this is perfectly obvious: there isn't a good argument for internment. Let's take case histories. First, Gary Younge:

According to Home Office statistics, 97% of those arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act - a series of draconian measures supposed to thwart the IRA - between 1974 and 1988 were released without charge. Only 1% were convicted and imprisoned.

The strike rate since the declaration of the war on terror has not been particularly impressive either. More than 700 people have been arrested under the Terrorism Act since September 11, but half have been released without charge and only 17 convicted. Only three of the convictions relate to allegations of extremism related to militant Islamic groups.

And our allies in this bid to limit freedom at home so that we can ostensibly extend it abroad have not had much more success. According to a recent investigation by the Washington Post, fewer than 10% of the people prosecuted for terrorism were convicted of crimes related to terrorism or national security. Of those, few had any connection to al-Qaida while the remaining 90% were acquitted or convicted of lesser crimes like immigration violations or making false statements.

And now (shudder) Nick Cohen:

In 1991, during the Gulf War, David Blunkett showed political courage under fire. He was, he said, 'very worried that some people are now being detained and threatened with deportation who not only pose no threat to security, but who themselves would be at considerable risk if they were deported'. The people he was fretting about were 50 Palestinians, interned because of their 'links to terrorism', and 35 Iraqi 'soldiers', captured in Britain and held as prisoners of war in a camp on the Salisbury Plain.

...

At the end of the war, the Home Office released all the detainees. It might still have deported them if there was a hint of a suspicion that they were terrorists. Ministers quietly allowed anyone who wanted remain in Britain to do so. There was no disciplinary action against the MI5 officers involved.

It is important not to be taken in here - internment has still been extended to 28 days. It will still involve injustice being done to hundreds, possibly thousands of individuals with a certain level of melanin and a certain length of beard. Seumas Milne suggested some time ago that:

The government has a policy it knows will arouse a blizzard of controversy. So it starts out with a maximalist, even outlandish, version. When that is predictably greeted with outrage, it retreats crab-like to its core position - and the final outcome is then accepted with relief that the government has compromised.

The difference in this case is that the government did not compromise and has been defeated. Blair has approached this, his last term, with extraordinary aggression. Despite the clear damage his tenure has done to the Labour party's base, he has sought to push even further to the right on every issue. On privatisation in schools and hospitals, on slashing welfare, on the unions, on selection and so on. It is hard not to believe that in this case he thought he would face his party and/or the opposition down as in all previous cases. He has been sharply rebuked.

And in the circumstances, this was the best possible outcome.