Opponents fight on as Brown wins terror detention vote

Published on Thursday 12 June 2008 11:01

OPPONENTS of 42-day pre-charge detention for terror suspects vowed today to continue the fight after the proposal scraped through the House of Commons by the narrowest of margins.

They said Prime Minister Gordon Brown was facing near-certain defeat in the Lords, which could trigger a vicious face-off between the upper and lower Houses of Parliament over the summer and early autumn.

Meanwhile, Conservatives were claiming that Mr Brown offered deals worth 1.2 billion to secure the support of wavering Labour backbenchers and the nine Democratic Unionist MPs whose votes finally won him victory by a margin of 315-306.

Downing Street insists that no deals were made and the DUP say that their MPs voted according to their consciences, but the suspicion nevertheless persisted in Westminster today that Peter Robinson's party had secured some sort of additional support for Ulster.

Speaking at his monthly press conference today, the prime minister said: "There was no deal. There was no deal with the Democratic Unionist Party, no deal with the Ulster unionists generally.

"And I think for people to imply that is to take away from the strength of the argument about the need to tackle terrorism."

He added: "Nobody knows more about the need to take action in preparation in case you have terrorist abuses than the people of Northern Ireland.

"And I believe that the people who voted for this voted on principle because they are persuaded by the argument."

Mr Brown's reliance on the votes of the DUP MPs, Ukip's Bob Spink and Conservative Ann Widdecombe will make a clash with the Lords all the more likely.

DUP MP Gregory Campbell said no "extraneous" matters were discussed yesterday, although the party hoped for constructive talks in the near future.

The Prime Minister may find it more difficult to persuade the House of Lords that 42-day detention is the settled will of the Commons given the circumstances under which yesterday's victory was secured.

And he may struggle to maintain his slender Commons majority on the measure if the Lords triggers a bout of "parliamentary ping-pong" by sending the Counter-Terrorism Bill back with amendments, leaving him in the position of needing to wield the Parliament Act to force the legislation through in the next session.

Amnesty International last night left no doubt it would continue campaigning against the 42-day decision.

The human rights group's UK director Kate Allen said: "This is a dangerous and disappointing decision. No government minister should have the power to allow police to lock people up for six weeks without charge.

"Amnesty will now take the fight to the Lords. These are important human rights that are being taken away and we will do all we can to protect them."

And Shami Chakrabarti, of civil liberties group Liberty, said the House of Lords, would be called upon to act as "the guardian of fundamental rights."