‘Labour is getting Britain back on track’

Ben Lyons, Co-Chair of OU Labour Club

In the Glasgow North-East by-election, the Conservative Party won 1,075 votes. This is a few hundred less than the “New Loony Party” candidate, Honest Blair, achieved in Oxford East at the last general election and just a hundred more than the Independent Working Class Association. By contrast, Labour won an impressive victory, holding the seat with almost 60% of the vote, despite the accepted political truth that governments lose by-elections (the Tories lost 19 by-elections before winning the 1992 general election). David Cameron is wrong to argue that the Conservatives have become a One Nation Party, representing the whole of Britain, rather than its countryside and suburbs. His party’s ideas still ring hollow to great swathes of the population.

There are two reasons for this. Firstly, his rhetoric is meaningless and contradictory; soundbites rather than a serious programme for government. In a speech last week, Cameron explained that “we need new answers now, and they will only come from a bigger society, not bigger government”. Yet he explains that “big society is not just going to spring to life on its own: we need strong and concerted government action”. The speech’s argument was bizarre – using the government to fight a bloated state – but Cameron’s real vision is actually quite simple: unreconstructed Thatcherism. Beyond the pseudo-intellectualism of his speeches, how do Cameron’s policies work out for hard-working families and those concerned with fairness and a basic sense of social justice. His single tax pledge is a cut for the 3000 richest estates in England, paid for by cutting pay for junior nurses; his gut hatred of the EU has forced him into alliance with a Polish party which will only accept complicity of Poles in the Holocaust if “someone from the Jewish side” also apologises for how “the Jews” behaved and there has been no pledge on what the Conservative Party would do on global warming.

By contrast, the Labour Party is pushing on unglamorously. We haven’t got the money for the expensive ads and we haven’t got a leader who sets your hairs on end. But we are doing the things that are getting Britain back on track. Earlier this week, Labour announced plans to tear up the contracts for risky bankers, guarantee one-to-one tuition for students and legally enshrine the right to hospital treatment within 18 weeks. None of these policies are exciting and the speech to introduce them was blunt and dry. What they will do is make a huge difference for millions of people across the whole of Britain, rebuilding the economy, strengthening our education and saving lives. This is what government should be about: taking practical steps to make life better for people, not grand tautological speeches. This is why Labour won in Glasgow.

‘Glasgow North East is not representative’

Alexander Hall, History, Wadham

I sometimes wonder if A-level politics was the mother of my scepticism. Half a lesson was dedicated to ‘safe seats’, in which Liverpool Riverside was given as an example as the safest Labour seat in the land. Today, this example has become relevant once again, when BBC News informed me that in Glasgow North East: ‘More than 9,000 people – one sixth of potential workers – were claiming incapacity benefit or severe disablement allowance in February… the second highest rate in the UK after Liverpool Riverside.’

Glasgow North East is not representative of the challenge that faces Labour at the next general election. If Labour had lost Glasgow North East it would have been far more worrying for the party than even Crewe and Nantwich last year. Even the most optimistic of Tory candidates would not expect such safe seats to be prised from redder hands, and in this constituency the SNP presented a far likelier alternative than the Conservative Party. The by-election victory was a convincing one, but unfortunately Glasgow does not represent the Labour Party’s comeback, and I suspect this result will soon fade into the shadow of a subject more worthy of attention and sensation: a new bank loan or a fresh demand for new helicopters in Afghanistan, obviating any bounce Labour might have gained from the by-election.

Policy gave way to partisan and class traditions in Glasgow, but this does not mean that the same will be the case more widely in the next general election. Policy will be scrutinised – this may seem a positive thing for Mr. Brown, who has not received due credit for his quick responses once downturn was underway, albeit that he was – at least – complicit in its origins. However, it may be that Cameron’s cost-cutting and emphasis on efficiency reflects the feeling of the public at large. Many seem to have forgotten that discontent in the winter of 1979 produced Mrs Thatcher’s cost-cutting; either that or they have been waiting for such an opportunity for its return. Discontent naturally hits the government hardest: economic crisis, MPs’ expenses and sensitivity to immigration will hit the government both where they are responsible and where they are not. Where traditional alignments such as those in Glasgow are not strong enough, or where Brown’s policies seem too little for the scale of the crisis, alternatives will succeed. Glasgow North East has not greatly bolstered Labour’s position, but focused the realities of elections for politicians.

Obama’s inauguration was supposed to mark a new era in American human rights policy. Guantanamo Bay – a continuing stain on their record – was to be shut down. Horrors such as water-boarding were to be ended. Gone would be the harrowing days of ‘torture flights’. But how much has been achieved? Are the promises being kept? I caught up with Sara MacNeice, Amnesty International UK’s Campaign Manager on Terrorism, Security and Human Rights to find out.

She explains that the swearing in of the new president gave Amnesty a real sense of optimism and hope that things would improve. ‘In January of last year, President Obama issued orders to close the base. He anticipated the closure within a year. Amnesty has been working for the closure of Guantanamo Bay basically since Guantanamo Bay existed, so this was a huge victory for us, in the sense that the president obviously had a firm desire to close the base. That was good news, along with that came other executive orders that looked to ending the practice of secret detention and closing down CIA run secret detention facilities and other measures that were very, very much pro human rights.’

I ask what we know about these facilities. Naively expecting such centres to be secluded within the vast American landscape, I am shocked to discover their global spread. ‘They’re in varying places, countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan. There have been rumoured – but it’s not absolutely confirmed – to be secret detention facilities in Poland, parts of eastern Europe, possibly, and also places like Diego Garcia which is under British control. But we don’t have a very clear picture of the secret detention network.

‘Alongside that went the practice of extraordinary rendition which allowed individuals to be transferred from one place to another without any judicial procedure where they would end up very often in these secret detention places.’

It is alarming that British territory could be used for such practices. Last year, David Miliband apologised, admitting that previous denials had been incorrect and that Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean, had been used by the U.S. for refuelling extraordinary rendition flights. Yet he further affirmed U.S. assurances that no US detainees were ever held on the island. However, later on in the year, Time magazine claimed a ‘former senior American official’ had told them that the U.S., in 2002, had ‘imprisoned and interrogated one or more terrorism suspects on Diego Garcia’.

Whatever the past though, at the beginning of 2009, Amnesty could at least take solace that things were going to improve. But has it panned out this way? Not in Amnesty’s book.

‘Obama was putting forward what we termed as “mixed messages”‘

‘Whilst it all looked very, very positive in January, Amnesty then reviewed Obama’s progress over the first 100 days of his presidency and we came to the conclusion that he was putting forward what we termed as “mixed messages”.

‘A good example of that is, whilst he said we close the CIA run secret detention network, he did not say he would end the practice of extraordinary rendition which leaves open the possibility of individuals being transferred from places like Guantanamo to other prisons, which are just not prisons run by the U.S..’

As well as renditions continuing, Guantanamo’s closure is wracked with difficulty:
‘In terms of Guantanamo, it is likely we will be disappointed in the promise to have it closed by January. If not, and if Guantanamo is closed by then, what we need to see is it closed properly within clear human rights-based parameters. That means that the individuals who remain in the base (numbering 200-220) need to be charged or released. They need to be charged and tried in a proper federal legal system or they need to be released.’

It looks like 80 shall be transferred to countries where asylum has been found. Amnesty hopes that for those who have been detained for so long without trial, redress will be found and abuses investigated.

For the ones who are to be charged, as many as 60, Amnesty strongly opposes trial by ‘military commission’. They argue that these bodies are illegal and unjust, with defendants lacking good quality legal representation (they have usually been offered only military lawyers), translation facilities, and access to the evidence against them before the hearing. On top of their extended incarceration, this has meant that the detainees cannot mount a proper defence. Congress recently enacted measures to add safeguards to the commissions.

Over the weekend, US Attorney General Eric Holder announced five detainees are to be tried by these modified military commissions and five more – including alleged 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed – in a civilian court in New York. Whilst this falls in line with Amnesty’s demands insofar as this is within normal legal parameters, I have suspicions that – just blocks away from Ground Zero – the intense desire not to let the real perpetrators escape justice means that anyone facing trial on terrorist charges faces a foregone conclusion.

So what role can students play in fighting against injustices in the war on terror? MacNeice sets out Amnesty’s appreciation of student activism: ‘The student body is one of our most powerful activist bases…We’ve had positive experiences with student activists who are ready and able to mobilize within hours.

‘Our job as an organization is to get the facts out there and make people aware how severe the violations of human rights are but also to look at the end game: to get the message out there that it will achieve very, very little to approach the issue of counter-terrorism in the way that many governments are persisting to approach it. Security and human rights are not two distinct issues, but they go hand in hand.’

In the war on terror, previous progress in human rights has been rolled back as is evident by such techniques such as water boarding which for many are tantamount to torture. Amnesty wants to arm the student body with arguments they need to counteract this regression, bringing about changes in popular opinion and government policy. Neglecting human rights only contributes to the problem of terrorism; only if we respect them again can we find a solution.

Students are invited to attend an event on human rights and the war on terror on November 26th, in London. See amnesty.org.uk for details.