An unfair treaty with America

July 2006

Recent days have seen very poignant remembrance services for the first anniversary of the London bombings and the new terrorist atrocities in India and I am sure all our thoughts are with those who lost loved ones.

Since 7/7, Britain has got on with its everyday life in the capital and around the country and that must be the right response to those that try and terrorise us. One of the worst things about these atrocities is their random nature – killing those of different nationalities, creeds and religions. Surely the way forward is for people from different backgrounds to work to understand each other rather than blow each other up. And we all need to work hard at doing that because it is easy for extremists on all sides to use festering grievances and intolerance to inflame the situation.

After the terrorist atrocities, I warned that while some sensible measures need to be taken, it would be tempting for the Government to curtail our hard-fought civil liberties and democratic rights too much in the fight against terrorism.

And the relatively new extradition treaty with America and the way the Government has gone about implementing it has drawn criticism from many from all parties in going too far in denying people justice and adequate rights. I believe that people should not be extradited without prima facie evidence of a case to answer. Indeed, this does apply to American citizens Britain wants to extradite but it does not apply in reverse under the treaty. The Lib Dems also believe that when we sign extradition treaties with other countries they should be subject to parliamentary debate. But this treaty was negotiated in secret in 2003 and the Government used parliamentary procedures to allow only the most cursory scrutiny of it by MPs. Indeed while America often ignores us, our Government was quick once again to do what the Americans wanted and enact the treaty into British law. But we still cannot apply the treaty to Americans because their Senate have yet to ratify it.

It is a crying shame that once again the British Government seems too anxious to please the Bush administration too quickly and too reluctant to trust and listen to our own Parliament.