Sarah's bulletin: 9 July 2010

Published on Fri 9th Jul 2010

Dear friends,

We already had action from our Lib-Tory government to abolish ID cards and child databases and fingerprinting. This week there was a veritable flood of good news to warm the cockles of our civil libertarian hearts! When Labour continue their often pathetic attacks on us, please sling back the way we are clearing up the mess their authoritarian regime bequeathed to the oppressed British people!

Government announces torture inquiry

A really big event was the Prime Minister's announcement that the LibDem manifesto commitment (it was not a Tory one) is being kept. There is finally going to be an independent judge-led inquiry into allegations of British complicity in torture. LibDems secured a coalition pledge to this, in line with a party conference resolution last year, so it is a great victory for us.

Along with others, I have been demanding such an inquiry (by other EU countries, as well as the UK) for years, having campaigned on Guantanamo since 2002 and been vice-chair of the European Parliament's investigation into EU involvement in torture which reported back in 2007. It took a change in government for anything to happen in the UK, since Labour just ducked, weaved and denied on the subject. Last week and this week I have had press coverage for my views, including on BBC News Channel and Radio 5 Live.

The government has rightly given the inquiry a wide remit and the freedom to follow the evidence 'wherever it leads'. Thus the inquiry has a good chance of achieving the key aims of restoring public confidence in the government and the security services' human rights compliance, and of achieving maximum possible disclosure about British involvement in post-9/11 CIA-led extraordinary rendition and torture.

Just 2 notes of caution. The Prime Minister has reserved to himself of the right to keep any part of the findings secret; I would urge that such decision be based exclusively on national security interests and not on the vested interests of the security services, politicians and former ministers or other parts of the government machine in avoiding criminal liability or political opprobrium. Secondly, the declared intention to legislate to stop court revelations of secret service wrongdoing must be carefully scrutinised at Westminster so that it does not breach Torture Convention obligations to pursue perpetrators.

Suspension of indiscriminate stop and search

I had a phone conversation with Home Secretary Theresa May this week, and hope to meet her briefly in Brussels next week. She chiefly wanted to raise the Swift agreement (see below). But among several other topics I mentioned to her was the work I have been doing with photographers in London about the police use of stop and search powers under section 44 of the 2000 Terrorism Act to routinely and arbitrarily stop, question and even search them without basis in any suspicion. I knew, as I reported last week, that the UK has to comply with a Strasbourg Court judgement condemning this indiscriminate power.

So I was delighted when within 48 hours she announced in the House of Commons a suspension of 'Section 44' powers so that stop and search will be limited to where reasonable suspicion exists. This is another very welcome reform.

London Pride and gay asylum seekers

I took part in London Pride last weekend which as you can see from the photos was great fun! I was pleased to be joined by many of my LibDem colleagues, especially our minister for equalities Lynne Featherstone, party president Baroness Ros Scott, Caroline Pidgeon AM and Brian Paddick. (See also the LibDem LGBT website here for more information on how the day went.)

We have made progress too on gay rights and asylum law this week. The Supreme Court ruled that the Home Office can no longer refuse asylum to gay refugee applicants on the basis that if they were discreet and hid their sexual orientation in their home country they could dodge persecution. This ruling was welcomed by the coalition government. Of course, the test of whether someone needs a grant of refugee status is not discrimination or family hostility at home, deplorable as those are. It has to be shown that there is a real threat to the safety of an individual. I was pleased to be told this week by a couple I had supported in their Home Office application that the partner is no longer under threat of deportation to a dangerously homophobic environment.

The European Parliament in plenary - a busy week!

While we in London remembered the 7/7 bombings five years on, MEPs in Strasbourg approved a new revised EU-US bank data transfer deal. Representing London that has been a terrorist target for most of my adult life (IRA before al-Qaeda) I have always been a firm supporter of law enforcement to fight the terrorist threat. But I have been equally determined not to junk civil liberties in the process.

That is why I and colleagues have fought so hard to make the new 'Terrorist Finance Tracking' agreement (known colloquially as 'Swift' after the name of the financial processing company concerned) compliant with European privacy standards. Liberal MEPs have led the way in making sure that our data protection laws are not trampled on when information is sent to the United States for analysis. We have also insisted that a European system be devised such that bulk data on the whole of our banking transactions would no longer cross the Pond but be filtered here and only precise leads handed over to the US.

I took part in a debate about SWIFT on Radio 4's The World this Weekend last Sunday, which you can still listen to here for another few days. This was a bit bizarre with an American thinktanker practically accusing the EP of being a jihadist front! The Independent also reported my comments.

But this was not all we did in Strasbourg this week. We also approved tough new EU laws to rein in unjustifiable bankers bonuses and put a break on casino banking -- although when I say 'we' I have to mention that UKIP and BNP MEPs voted in favour of the current status quo where bank directors like 'Fred the Shred' Goodwin walk away from failing banks which huge pension pots.

On the environment, MEPs took an axe to the illegal timber trade by banning the sale of illegally logged wood products in the EU and setting up strict penalties for rogue traders - cutting down the world's beautiful rainforests is a big source of carbon emissions and contributes to biodiversity loss. The European Parliament also voted for Iceland to cease all whaling as a precondition of entry to the European Union. I voted against this particular amendment, since EU law already means that Iceland will not be allowed to carry out whaling operations in EU waters once it joins and other whaling issues should be dealt with in parallel to EU talks. Regarding food safety, Liberals voiced their opposition to 'cloned' food - the prospect of futuristic factories cloning live animals instead of breeding them as normal in farms!

In foreign affairs we endorsed the birth of the new EU diplomatic service that will hopefully make for a more coherent EU foreign policy, called for more EU action in southern Kyrgyzstan after last month's violent clashes and urged all EU governments to sign up to and ratify the international convention on deadly cluster bombs.

...goodbye Espana, hello Belgium

This week has also been the first full week of the Belgian presidency of the EU. Spanish PM Jose Luis Zapatero came to visit the European Parliament this week to wrap up his time in EU office, and MEPS took this opportunity to raise the 'Spanish land grab' issue again. This is where Spanish authorities forcibly reclaim private property - often owned by British expats - for so-called "urban development" but without proper compensation and with a strong whiff of corruption as well as abuse of power.

Many Londoners have been affected by this violation of property rights, and the Spanish government has been doing far too little about it. In his response Prime Minister Zapatero said that courts must apply the law and that the Spanish authorities are working with the European Parliament on this issue. He also spoke of the need to protect the Spanish coast from environmental abuse and over-construction. Let's hope this putting of the PM on the spot will have some real effect.

Mobile roaming now cheaper!

As of last Friday, we can all go on holiday safe in the knowledge that we won't be ripped off by mobile phone operators on every call we make and receive outside the UK. Thanks to rules championed by MEPs, networks will now only be able to charge a maximum of €0.39 per minute for making calls and €0.04 per minute for receiving calls. In addition, for those of us addicted to our iPhones and Blackberries, we will now also be able to set a fixed cap for data downloads (internet and email) while we are away, so that we are not faced with a runaway bills on that front too. Roaming charges in the EU have fallen by roughly 75% since 2005, a real help to all!

Byelections in London

We have had a string of council byelections in London recently (with more to come!). We did well in coming a good second in the byelection in Tulse Hill ward in Lambeth last week. Yesterday was the turn of Goresbrook in Barking and Dagenham and Chadwell in Redbridge and we put up a good fight in both. Notably, we helped stop the BNP coming back in Barking, a very creditable achievement.

More are coming down the track, and though clearly our chances will vary greatly from one to another, they are all a chance to show our activity, recruit members and activists, contribute to a targeting plan etc. I aim to get to as many as humanly possible to help the local LibDems (Brussels/Strasbourg permitting), working also with the London region campaigns team, so see you there.

Meeting with Ahmadiyya Muslim Association

Last week I visited the Baitul Futuh mosque in Morden where I met representatives of the UK's Ahmadiyya Muslim Association. Ahmadis are a minority Muslim denomination, have long been subject to persecution and now victims of murderous terrorist attacks in Pakistan. I met with Rafiq Ahmad Hayat the National President, General Secretary Bashir Akhtar and Nasser Butt, former LibDem PPC in Tooting, and signed the condolence book in the mosque. You can read more about my visit in the Wimbledon Guardian here.

I am taking up with the Home Office and Ofcom the need to prevent repercussions here through threats and intimidation including through TV; we must do everything to avoid the importation into Britain of sectarian abuse and uphold the equality of all our citizens.

Best regards,

Sarah Ludford