Britain 2006 - the slide to a police state
A rough guide to the future conference workshop 21 October 2006
Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, leader of the Muslim Parliament, opened the workshop on Britain 2006 – the slide to a police state, by describing the background to the marginalisation of Muslim communities.
The largest migration from the Indian sub-continent took place during the 1960’s. Most migrants came from the poorer rural areas of Kashmir and Pakistan. They were expected to address the UK labour shortage in unskilled jobs. Many councils provided poor quality housing in separate areas, and for those who could not find jobs, there was no opportunity to mix with the local population. This was compounded by the Labour Party who promoted a tribal interest to support their vote.
He then went on to describe the connections between the secret services of both USA and UK and Al-Qaeda since 1979, when they were supported with both finance, arms and propaganda against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. This relationship continues to this day as evidenced at the Abu Hamza trial.
Dr Siddiqui said that in Britain today, the BNP racists and Muslim fundamentalists were setting the political agenda. New Labour spoke only to the organisations in the Muslim community which were dominated by fundamentalists. These people had their own reasons for keeping the communities under control.
Mark Barrett from People in Common, characterised present democracy as an elective dictatorship, which was a corruption of the ideals of democracy. He explained the emasculated role of parliament in the political system. Mark maintained that the political system did the bidding of powerful, capitalist interests. In that respect, capitalism was incompatible with democracy.
The constitution in the UK has been created by laws accumulated over the years. Magna Carta, with its concept of liberty under the law, was an example of the feudal landowners asserting their rights over the monarchy. A less well know example of the assertion of Common rights is the Forest Charter of 1217.
The way to build a new democratic constitution was from below, debating our common concerns and continually developing our concepts. He introduced the Campaign for a 21st Century Democracy – C421 – which has drawn up a statement of aims and principles. Other speakers outlined the measures that New Labour and, before them, the Tories, had introduced. These included the anti-union laws, detention without trial under anti-terror laws, mass surveillance, the DNA database, stop and search without cause, the ban on protests near Parliament and the power to seize emails without a warrant.