Call it courageous. Call it principled. Call it stupid. Call it being out of touch. However their actions are described, many Conservative and Liberal Democratic MPs are placing themselves at odds with the electorate when demanding an end to control orders and a reduction in the time a suspect may be questioned without charge.
In general, 60% of voters think terrorist suspects should lose some of their human rights; just 31% think that ‘whatever they are suspected of, people are innocent until proven guilty and should have their human rights protected’. Conservatives are especially keen to strip suspected terrorists of some of their rights – they back this view by 70% to 26%. Liberal Democrats are more evenly divided, but even among them, the 47% who want to curb human rights outnumber the 43% who think all suspects’ rights should be fully protected.
As for the length of time suspected terrorists may be held without charge, just 19% want the time reduced. 27% want it kept at 28 days, while 45% want it extended to 42 days or longer. This means that 72% of the public want the time limit to be at least 28 days. This view is shared by majorities of supporters of all three main parties: 77% of Conservatives, 73% of Labour voters and 65% of Liberal Democrats.
The story is much the same with control orders. We asked: ‘Current laws also allow the government to impose control orders on people who they suspect pose a serious terrorist threat, but who they do not have evidence to prosecute. Control orders can restrict where suspects are allowed to go, items they are not allowed to possess, and who they are allowed to see or communicate with. They do not require a trial and there are only limited rights of appeal. Do you think the government should or should not have the power to use control orders?’
By five-to-one, the public wants control orders to stay, a margin that rises to almost eight-to-one among Conservatives, and is still decisive margin of more than three-to-one among Liberal Democrats.
Perhaps more surprisingly, half the electorate even want Britain’s security services to use information passed to them by other countries when they believe that torture has been used to extract that information. Just 31% find that repugnant. Here, Liberal Democrats do differ from supporters of the other two parties. More Lib Dem supporters dislike this idea (45%) than condone it (36%).
Finally, the public does NOT agree with airline executives who have been saying airport security is too tight. This view is held by just 15%. Rather more, 28% think security is not strict enough, while 48% think the balance is ‘about right’. That means fully 76% want security to remain at least as tight as it is today – a figure that varies little by party, age, gender, social class or region.
