Bringing Freedom to Great Britain

Freedom-wise, there's nowhere more self-satisfied than Britain. Bastion of personal liberty, home of the ground-breaking Magna Carta, the place where the sturdy yeoman can sit under his thatched roof secure from the intrusions of the king... Pull the other one. Any sentient citizen must realize that in terms of liberty, the country has less than a state-of-the-art democracy; in fact, it's been coasting on its rep. Now, thanks to a slavishly Bush-poodling Labour government with a startlingly authoritarian bent, Britons are beginning to recognize that this sceptred isle, this earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, this other Eden is about to become this surveillance state, this database depot, this green and pleasant centre of preventive detention, this precious home of biometrically-keyed national identification cards set in a sea of CCTV cameras.

But Britons are getting a chance to have their own democratic moment. On Saturday February 28, lawyers, judges, politicians, human rights supporters, anti-surveillance activists, members of the Countryside Alliance, rock 'n' rollers denied the right to stage concerts of their own choosing (honestly) and presumably more than a few ordinary concerned citizens will be gathering all across the UK -- in London of course, but also in Belfast, Bristol, Cardiff, Cambridge, Glasgow and Manchester -- at the Convention on Modern Liberty. There they will hear from a roster of speakers that will include civil rights activist Shami Chakrabarti, journalist Henry Porter, jurist Helena Kennedy and conservative member of Parliament David Davis, who gave up his seat to protest the government's policies on preventive detention, and his party's supine reaction. And they will learn more about the ever encroaching threats to individual liberty that have been fueled by government's growing appetite to keep its citizens under constant watch and maintain detailed files on what they do. It may not be as dramatic as the storming of the Bastille, but it's a start.

And a start that might learn from the USA. A new, more American-like legal recognition of individual rights would be a welcome update for what is still, just, one of the world's leading democracies. Not that it could prevent all transgressions, as the Bush-Cheney administration amply demonstrated. But such a change would bring about a fundamental alteration in the relationship between the people and the government.

In Britain, the people have always been subservient to the government. Power was first invested in the king, who, the citizenry was told, received it from God. Over the centuries the king's authority was gradually ceded to Parliament. And though it's true that Parliament is elected by the people, the relative infrequency of elections -- contrast with the US where a third of the Senate and the entire House of Representatives=2 0is contested every two years -- and the power of party discipline mean that voters can yelp and squawk and scream and march in their millions but be safely ignored b y the ruling class. As for rebels... Well, there's Oliver Cromwell, who asserted the rights of Parliament, but after he died, the monarchy was restored, and wasn't the restoration more fun? And there was, it's true, the Glorious Revolution, though that should have been called the Clever Revolution, for the smart way one monarch was swapped in for another. But many hardcore malcontents just upped and left.

And many of them came to America, where one can more plausibly say that the people rule. They overthrew one government (citing "inalienable rights") and created the next one (in the name of "We, the People.") The Constitution they wrote treated government with extreme suspicion, and they shackled it with checks and balances and separated powers and a firm Bill of Rights that prohibited the government from making laws that limited individual liberty. Today, that suspicion of government survives across the political spectrum: the left is wary of official police powers, the right of spreading, meddlesome, freedom-squelching bureaucracy. The result is a highly individualistic culture, one that constantly mythologizes outlaws (Jesse James, Vito Corleone), self-appointed vigilantes (Dirty Harry, Spiderman), and the freelance rebel who climbs onto a motorcycle and goes on the road or onto his raft and head down the Mississippi.

With all its problems and difficulties, the pull of this individual freedom has been felt throughout the world -- as it will be in the UK on February 28. It's time to take a stand. It's time to summon up the shades of such great British reformers as William Wilberforce and his fellow abolitionists. It's time to realize that Britain needs to make real something it already thinks is right. It's time, in fact, for the UK's very own Bill of Rights.

This post originally appeared on thefirstpost.co.uk.

Comments

[fbr79]

Paranoia about CCTV and national ID cards is so boring.

[Macready]

not really . . . I live in London . . . and well the government now wants to install video cameras to record who buys a bottle of wine in the supermarket . . and who goes drinkign in pubs . . .and the pubs and the supermarkets have to pay for it . . and have to keep the tape for 60 days . . why all this one wonders . . . when they can't even get the economy right . . . it really isn't paranoia .. it is too much big brother by a paranoid state

[KoolBreez]

UK?Democracy? If we had a queen (no matter how useless) would we be a Democracy? Not to mention the House of Lords..

[PatchyWarrior]

The monarchy's really just for the tourists. The Queen has no political power to speak of. The House of Lords, weird as it may seem, acts as a balance to the Commons. It's not perfect, but show me the political system that is . . .

[holeybuybull]

There was a reason that "V" was set in England.

[Figural]

I agree with some of the criticisms of the article, but basically, Mr Malanowski is right. I'll be participating in Bristol on Saturday, complete with camera and tripod, and expect to be tackled by police who'll tell me, wrongly, that I don't have the right to take photos in a public place without a licence. We plan to have enough amateur snappers present to be able to photograph illegal police harassment.
On a side note, the Bristol event is being held in an ex-church, where I was married so many years ago! Rather unfortunately, it's opposite a very high-security police station. No, I don't plan to point my camera in their direction, under the law they'd have a legitimate complaint if I did. I hope not to add to the scar by my left eye that I got from a King County, WA, policeman's baton in Seattle, in 1999.

[benali]

The article mistakenly contrasts civil liberties in the US with those in the UK. Privacy International's map of the leading surveillance societies rank both the US and the UK with China and Russia as the most surveilled populations on earth --

http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd%5B347%5D=x-347-559597

How many Americans realize they are watched over on par with China and Russia?

[TimDanMick]

A very condescending, smug article. There are many countries in the world where life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are made difficult. Try being an arab Israeli or a young black male American and see how difficult it is to stay out of prison. If Burris resigns there will be no black senators in the US. I would prefer if the UK were a federal republic with a Bill of Rights but I will leave that to the British electorate to prioritize as they wish. People in glass houses......

[Figural]

We did get a bill of rights of sorts, in 1689, for protestants only. If my history is correct, it even included a right to bear arms. We need to abolish the 'public policy' provision in our law, where the interest of the state can, and often does, override the application of justice according to statutes passed by parliament. Young black British males share the same problem as their American counterparts, sadly. Yes, we should have a bill of rights - Unlock Democracy - http://www.unlockdemocracy.org.uk/ - is the leading organisation campaigning for political change. Yes, we should be a federal republic - I'm working on it!

[EducatedObserver]

TimDanMick,

I couldn't agree with you more. Not only is this article smug, but it is almost unreadable.

Great Britain has got a lot to be proud about - its legal system, culture, parliamentary traditions, to name a few. The English-speaking nations of the world owe a debt to this country. I am grateful that the United Kingdom helped form my cultural identity.

And, did I mention language?

[MagisterLudi]

"Try being an arab Israeli"--- Arab Israelis SUE the government of Israel if there's any risk of them ending up under Palestinian Authority and losing Israeli passport.

"young black male American... and jail." -- here's a suggestion. don't drop out of school. stay off the streets, go to college on a government grant and/or loan. If you get a PhD, a job is almost guaranteed. Bingo.
Another alternative: go to a vocational school. Get a job. You'll find out that staying out of jail would quite easy.

Start thinking for yourself and stop listening to people who are selling you short for their own political interests.

[TimDanMick]

All of the worlds people are born with the same potential. If an identifiable group falls short in achievement it is because of external forces. The best example is the historic disadvantage that women have suffered and which we can now see is not due to lack of ability. Black American males are the most imprisoned group in the world. Your narrow world view seems to think that it is deserved somehow. Please consider, for just a moment, that you are a bigot and therefore you cannot see things clearly.

[lightningbolt]

remember remember the 5th of november

[Creag]

any mention of Oliver Cromwell makes my skin crawl, oh sure he asserted the rights of parliament . . . right into the Irish campaign . . . Come on you could have found a better historical figure to choose