Shadow Home Secretary backs police justice, rejects due process. Be afraid.

Supports police justice.

For years now, the authoritarianism of the Labour government has enabled the Conservatives to pose as champions of civil liberties. Yet recent comments by shadow home secretary Chris Grayling illustrate how superficial such commitments really are.

In a speech the other day Grayling billed his new proposals – in words to make Daily Mail readers cream – as a “21st-century clip around the ear”.  Police he said should be “given the power to confiscate temporarily a young troublemaker’s mobile phone.  Removing their SIM card, with all their mobile numbers and text messages on it.  For a fortnight or a month.  Not permanently.  But long enough to make a point.” He also suggested that the police should be allowed to confiscate bikes and to ground young people for up to a month allowing them out only for school.

Most remarkable were his objections to ASBOs. I, like others, have criticised ASBOS for giving the authorities a virtually open ended license to punish all manner of social activity. Yet for Grayling the problem with ASBOs is that are characterised by too much due process.

“The name of the game has to be simplicity and speed. Not a response that takes months of complex bureaucracy – like getting an ASBO. Not a response that puts a teenage troublemaker before the courts for a minor offence. But a consequence that impacts on their lives and makes them think again. If we’re to deter potential troublemakers, the consequences they face have to be relevant to the lives they lead, and to be immediate.”

So we have reason to be fearful and to be vigilant. It is very likely that we are – after the next election – to have a home secretary who appears not to understand the basic principles of justice in a free society – namely that that state should not impose significant sanctions on the individual without the individual being entitled to defend themselves in a court of law. Or at the very least, a home secretary who feels such crucial principles should play second fiddle to considerations of “efficiency” and “simplicity”.

Update: you must read Paul’s commentary on this over at Bickerstaffe.