Will Britain Let Fascism Rule?

Back on July 10,2005, I wrote Look Out Britain. It's Time To Lose Your Rights. Now less than a month later, Blair is pushing for a U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act on steroids for Britain. Will the people, and the MPs, let him get away with it? It is starting to look like it. If there is outrage in the streets, the UK papers (like their US counterparts) aren't covering it. Since those papers seem to be several cuts above the U.S. corporate press, I have to deduce that there is not a lot of outrage, and that Brits, like those in the U.S. after 9/11/01, are willing to trade an ephemeral safety for their rights. Blair has apparently been a good student of the Bush politics of fear.

Blair's proposed anti-terrorism measures are broad, vague, and threatening. He proposes deportation for those "fostering hatred, advocating violence to further a person's beliefs, or justifying or validating such violence" and changing the Human Rights Act (CSM).

Blair justifies the rights crackdown because 'the game has changed'. Indeed? Somehow, Britain was able to maintain and advance human and civil rights throughout decades of conflict with the IRA, but the July attacks give wing to sweeping changes.

The Independent offered a brief analysis of the proposed changes. In what I can find on the proposed changes, I see no clearer definition of terrorism, or inciting terrorism, than is present in the U.S. versions. It is a vague "war" indeed that Blair proposes. And like his "friend" Bush, he is willing to "amend the Human Rights Act if necessary to override likely judicial objections to the proposed deportation regime." (Guardian, 8/06/05). In other words, if the law of the land obstructs the squashing of rights, then change the law. How dreadfully familiar that sounds.