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NuLab in power: taking liberties...

Recent issues of Ulster Nation have expressed our deep concern at the authoritarian police state currently under construction in Tony Blair's Britain. Strict conformity to rules are to be enforced by the full power of the law, especially with regard to 'religious hate crime'. The NuLab government also plans to exclude members of an unpopular opposition party from all forms of public employment and will also collude with Trade Union bureaucrats to allow such members to be kicked out of their unions on purely partisan political grounds.

That party's leader, Nick Griffin, faces a spell in prison for remarks allegedly made at a private meeting. At the same time, antiwar protesters are served with Anti-Social Behaviour Orders or arrested under the draconian Serious Organised Crime and Police Act for the 'serious crime' of standing at the Cenotaph in Whitehall to read out loud the names of the 97 British soldiers who have died to date in Tony Blair's ill-conceived Iraqi adventure. The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act forbids spontaneous demonstrations within a one kilometre radius of the House of Commons. Maya Evans from Hastings was found guilty of breaching Section 132 of the Act and ordered to pay £100 in costs after her astonishing arrest by two vanloads of police goons. She now has a criminal record. Report a break-in at your home and see how long it takes for police to arrive, unless you happen to mention that you've shot the intruder!

In 2002, Tony Blair told an audience that he respected people's right to protest and that those who do should be thankful that they live in a 'democracy'. “I pass demonstrators every day in Downing Street, and believe me, you name it, they protest against it. I may not like what they call me but I thank God they can. That's called freedom.”

However, his party's record in power has not been to advance liberty but to restrict it. Even veteran members of his own party get into trouble. Walter Wolfgang, a Labour Party member for 57 years was bundled out of the Party conference in Brighton for shouting out 'Nonsense' as Jack Straw tried to defend Britain's role in Iraq. The 82-year-old was bundled out of the hall by thuggish stewards and later stopped under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 from re-entering the hall. This law was supposed to be used to restrain suspected terrorists, not protesters.

Traditional notions of Habeas Corpus are under threat. People can be locked up for weeks without charge and there are strong suspicions of NuLab complicity in what the Americans euphemistically call 'extraordinary rendition' – torture flights to bring suspects to interrogation in countries which do not have to abide by the principles of the United States Constitution.

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