David -

The judge ruled on Thursday that financial sanctions imposed on him by the Treasury, which led to his bank account being frozen and his benefit payments stopped, were unfair and unlawful.

Fairness aside, the Judge was right to call the orders unlawful. They were made in secret, at the behest of a foreign power and devoid of any Parliamentary scrutiny. As for the liberties they cut through, well that's the common law, Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights and the Habeas Corpus Act all trashed.

Our liberties were won for all of us to limit intrusive government against any of us, not just Abdul Kaboom. Notwithstanding the phrase 'al-Qaeda leadership' sounds very fishy to me, these 'security sources' who described Mr G as a key player, acting as a conduit between terrorists here and the 'al Qaeda leadership somewhere near the Khyber Pass, clearly need to put up or shut up. The man should be charged or released. The slow crawl to freedom that began in Runnymede wasn't intended to stop in 2008 with the government secretly ordering the economic death of anyone, let alone without trial.

If G is a foreigner, as I suspect he is, the Home Secretary has the legal authority to order his expulsion. If he's a foreign-born Briton, the Home Secretary has the legal authority to remove his status and then expel him. Strangely, our Home Secretaries seem very reluctant to use these powers, They apparently prefer to allow suspected terrorists to live and operate here and use their presence to crush the liberties of us all.

Pete, you cut to the clear essence of this case very persuasively. Governments have been using our fear of terrorism to sanctify the erosion our rights. As repugnant as it may be for us to protect the rights of the Mr. G's in our countries, if we don't, we could find ourselves facing the same end of that government stick in the future.

If keeping the public "safe" is the goal, expelling these people seems the most rational option, why don't they do it? Freezing his accounts doesn't safeguard the citizens from a terrorist attack.

Daphne -

If keeping the public "safe" is the goal, expelling these people seems the most rational option, why don't they do it?

There are two imperatives for the government here.

These islamic types have long been allowed to live and operate here. It was more than a decade ago that the French secret service dubbed London 'Londonistan'. As I said, their presence is a pretext for ever-greater government intrusion into our lives and the abolition of our liberties. It's not a recent phenomenon; 50 years of mass immigration has been the Trojan Horse via which the British State has eroded our freedoms of speech, assembly and contract. Institutions and private individuals are severely restricted in what they may say and do, in the interests of 'race relations', for example. So we can see that these latest tricks, under the guise of security, are nothing new.

Second, many government ministers and MPs rely on inner-city muslim votes, in London and northern towns, for their positions. I suspect the government knows forceful crackdowns on islamic extremists would cause these islamic votes to disappear. So we see, for example, our Justice Minister, the communist Jack Straw, loudly condemn the publication of the Danish cartoons of doom. Without islamic votes in his Blackburn constituency, he would be out of a job.

It's a pretty safe assertion so say that the supposed 'tiny minority' of islamists and their sympathisers here is no tiny minority and that the government knows it. Otherwise, the government wouldn't be in such a bind when dealing with a philosophy that represents the opposite of that which supposedly progressives politicians have championed in the post-war period. But it can't oppose islamism too enthusiastically, because it needs islamic votes.

Pete, I have some questions for you, but I've got to run off to the baseball fields right now. I'll be back later.

our governments are peopled by assholes, you can not fight a war in court!

I agre with Pete's 10.40am comment. Rather than go through all these hoops of imposing various restrictions, the govt. should just expel foreign citizens whose presence is not conducive to the national interest.

Pete Moore.

You may have slightly wandered off David Vance's original topic, but your line is worth pursuing.

The government's killer blow came in the year 2000 with the Race Amendments Act.
This refined and expanded the 1976 Race Relations Act, and was designed to throw the net wider still to incorporate public & voluntary sector organisations that receive public funding.
Like a cancer, this 2000 Act has spread out into every aspect of our lives from the courts of justice to road sweeping.
In essence it means that the onus is on the individual or organisation to 'prove' that by employing such-and-such a person, they are not being discriminatory.
It's a form of coercion and is now taking on other guises as it moves through society, seeking to control how we act and think.

It is the perfect example of Orwell's 'ThoughtCrime'.

Hey Pete,

What kicked off the mass immigration?

Why were Pakistanis, versus some other third world group, given immigration preference?

I have more, but I want to start there.

Daphne

In the UK it was citizens from Commonwealth (former Empire) countries who were given preference - which is the same as most European countries did with their former colonies.

Colm, okay, but why not pick non-muslim ones? Or just load up on Indians?

And, again, why was there a need for mass immigration?

Daphne

There hasn't been a specific priority in favour of Muslim countries. In fact it's a minority of Britain's non-white population who are Muslim. Mass immigration occured because from the 1960s onwards there were plenty of low level service jobs for immigrants to do where education social and welfare changes had led to the noative population not wanting or needing to do those jobs. Now it just seems to have become like a sticky rolling stone gathering lots of moss.

I think y'all should scrape off the moss and toss the stone.

Maybe the government ought to offer massive tax breaks to working families, then they could afford to have more kids, buy a house, have mom stay home - you know, increase the British population naturally so you don't need to recruit troublemakers that want to kill you.

They might also want to consider cutting welfare benefits so the lazy get off their butts and go to work, that could take up some of the needed worker slack.

Daphne, the same thing almost happened when Hong Kong went bact to China, in that alot of people holding British passports were looking at lifeboat Britian.

Daphne

A lot of native Brits are staying at home and having lots of kids, but alas it's all on welfare and the kids as they grow into alduthood have no intention -or incentive- to do the jobs that immigrants will do.
Govt. is always talking about cutting welfare but they never have the guts to do it properly.

Did they get on the lifeboat Charles?

Colm, do your welfare folks vote in significant numbers? Ours don't. Always makes me wonder why the politicians pander to them.

Daphne

No they don't , but it's not really votes that prevent politiciians cutting the welfare state. it's a feeling of being harsh towards the poor and an unwillingness to accept the sometimes harsh consequemces of real reform.

Colm,

I think it's more a case of the politicians liking the power they hold over the welfare folks and, more importantly, the tax producing workers and business owners that they suck dry.

I seriously doubt very many of those in power really "care" about poor people.

Daphne -

Pakistani (and Bangladeshi) immigration was a smaller element of post-war immigration that included West Indians, Africans and Indian hindus. The guise was that Britain needed rebuilding after WW2, we had a demand for the labour and that these Empire subjects were willing suppliers. Even if strictly true in 1945, no-one at the time suggested that it had to continue for 65 years and that in the early years of the 21st Century a million eastern Europeans would also be needed, even though by then 5 million able-bodied Britons would be paid to stay at home.

It must be recalled, however, that in 1945 we elected the most disastrous government in British history. Clement Atlee's Labour Party stood Britain on its head and instituted Left Wing policies that collectivised much commerce and industry, impoverished Britain steadily in the post-war era (because the Conservative Party accepted this paternalistic, big-government settlement) and not even 11 years of Thatcherism could wholly rid us of it's catastrophic effects.

This same Atlee government also instituted this policy of mass immigration, and given the fervour with which it set about changing Britain for good, I have no doubt that 'economic need' was merely a part of the actual reason for it. Also, this policy has been followed slavishly by every government since, Conservative and Labour, not one of which has been remotely patriotic since the late 1940s and which have repeatedly screwed the British people. One reason for this, which conservatives must acknowledge if they're honest, is that the Left Wing/Fabian/Marxist agenda coincides here with the business agenda, which has been pushed relentlessly by bodies such as the Confederation of British Industry. The former hates our heritage, freedoms and the inherently conservative nature of the British people, and wants to combat this via mass immigration. The latter wants a steady, long-term supply of cheap labour, and has been getting it.

In the post-war period this agitation between Britons and muslims is a recent problem. Until 9/11 and the tensions unleashed on that day, very few Britons had thought much about muslim immigration, although it's long been visible. Black immigration has a far longer history of being the subject of concern. It's black immigration which is the guise for the destruction of our freedoms and the foundation stone on which the ever-expanding race relations industry has been built.

(Liberals take note, I blame white liberals for this, not black immigrants).

The sudden and dramatic rise to prominence of muslim immigration was as much a surprise to government and the race relations industry as it was to most others after September 2001. Let no-one accuse them of being slow to adapt, however, because overnight the black faces disappeared from the media, the patting of black heads finished along with legions of white liberals telling blacks how hard done by they were. Overnight all was changed and blacks were ejected in favour of muslims, something that continues today.

I'm sure many Americans had a similar experience, suddenly noticing how many muslims there are in the US and the political clout they now hold, whereas before 9/11 they simply never noticed.

Some people have long been aware of it. People like me, for instance, who grew up in an east London multicultural paradise and heard young muslims talk about allah and conquest as far back as the early 1980s. Since then my objections to muslim immigration have led to liberals calling me a racist (the correct term is 'racialist', liberals) so many times that it became background noise years ago. Still, it's always nice to be ahead of the pack and even some liberals have now realised the error of their naive ways. But it would be nice if they'd apologise just once.

Pete

A liberal who apologised to you would no longer be a liberal surely?

Daphne -

I've always thought you're a very perceptive lady ;-)

Wow, thanks Pete. I'm going to chew on this for awhile, you've given me a great feast to read. I'm probably going to have questions though.

**Alison should fancy you. :-)

I think though here in the UK the event that first brought the Muslim population to prominence as a specific religous group was the Salman Rushdie Fatwa business. I rememebr seeing a massive march of about 50,000 angry Islamists through central London which raised my eyebrows shall we say.

Oh, I remember that Colm! That was huge - why didn't we wake up then?

totally off topic, did you go see my garden?

Daphne

I'd love to see your garden....

Oh,that garden ?. No sorry, I am not at my own PC , I am using a friend's and I can't recall your blog 's full name. *no,no* doesn't bring it up in Google.

Okay Pete, I'm going to toss you a few more, forgive my ignorance.

Why did you elect Atlee? What was so appealing about his Left Wing agenda? Was it because the people were looking for some illusional bulwark of safety after the war? Why did people buy into government as the answer to their problems rather than hold to their long standing belief in their own capabilities?

And

Why do people, once they buy into a socialist agenda, agree to business (the anti-socialists) dictating the country's immigration agenda for their sole benefit? It's so anti-labor union, anti-fair wage, anti-benefits, etc. This makes no sense to me, it's irrational from a leftist's point of view.

(Yes, we have the same business/immigration leftist cabal here too)

Sorry Colm, I had to fix that. Can you access your email? I'll send it to you. I don't want any witches in my garden. :-)

Daphne,

Surely you mean the "business/immigration Republican cabal." All the business owners I've heard of who hire illegal aliens in the USA support the Republican party.

Also, when Colm wrote about "a massive march of about 50,000 angry Islamists through central London" you replied "I remember that Colm! That was huge - why didn't we wake up then?" Amazingly, I missed the coverage of that march. When was it exactly?

Yes Alan, I do. The republican party sold their soul to business, and in some cases (McCain), a liberal mindset when it suited them. I will not carry water for the GOP anymore.

Heck if I know exactly when, but I remember the coverage of Rushdie's apostasy and the uproar it caused in the UK and Europe. Maybe Colm can give details on the specifics.

As to my "why didn't we wake up then" comment, I mean why didn't it occur to Americans (or the British) that the Muslims were very angry and pretty darn serious about their religion.

Alan

Daphne will probably not have remembered the march, it was largely peaceful if intimidating ,but as I actually saw it in person it made me think "wow we gotta lotta Muslims here" . The march itself wasn't such a big story . however surely you remember the controversy in general about the Ayatollah putting a Fatwa on Salman Rushdie for The Satanic Verses. It was quite widely reported worldwide.

"wow we gotta lotta Muslims here"

Ah Jesus, that made laugh. That's got to be the line of the week.

Colm and Daphne,

I do remember the Rushdie fatwa (stopped listening to Cat Stevens forever), but the march was new to me. We actually get very little coverage of those kinds of events on US network news. One of the reasons I watch BBC World news and used to watch the CBC in years past was to get coverage of non-USA events like that.

Daphne -

Why did you elect Atlee? What was so appealing about his Left Wing agenda? Was it because the people were looking for some illusional bulwark of safety after the war? Why did people buy into government as the answer to their problems rather than hold to their long standing belief in their own capabilities?

Britain was a different place back then, still deferential and much more conscious of class than now. But WW2 marked a change in attitude among many. From 1939-45 everyone made huge sacrifices. Hundreds of thousands of British troops had been killed on every continent. Our cities had suffered massively by Lufwaffe bombing which killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. Food had been rationed. Children had been evacuated away from families in cities. Women worked the land, factories, and in the emergency services.

All in all, WW2's social effects were massive.

So at the end of it all there was a feeling that we didn't go through all that just to go back to what we had before. Our fighting men wanted more for their sacrifices, women had worked in mass numbers for the first time and many wanted to keep this new social freedom.

Along came the election and pitted Churchill's Conservative Party and Atlee's Labour Party. The feeling was that as great as Churchill had been, his Conservative Party would turn Britain back to a pre-war Britain. The Labour Party adopted a very seductive slogan - 'A Land Fit For Heroes' and promised social benefits, because the British people had bloody well earned them.

Labour won in a landslide. Of course what few considered was that Atlee's government would mean institute long-term, ruinous, policies that would slowly impoverish Britain. The outcome was a Third World Britain that turned to Thatcherism in despair in 1979 after decades of socialist design.

I don't blame the British people for what they did in 1945. Churchill was a far greater war leader than peacetime Prime Minister and there was little knowledge of the evils of socialism then. They'd gone through so much hardship that they weren't just going to go home and start doffing their caps at the nobs again. In the event, Churchill's Conservative Party was re-elected in 1951 after a narrow Labour win in 1950, but Atlee's government had been so revolutionary that the damage would remain undone for decades and in 1945 the Conservative Party had lost forever the stomach to fight for conservatism.

Thanks Pete. That was very informative, I appreciate you taking the time to give me a little schooling.