Warning: Terrorist Material - new Terrorism Act, United Kingdom - Brief Article

You know a political system is under serious threat when it resorts to draconian, authoritarian laws designed to shield it from even the mildest criticism. If that is true, then we should take heart from New Labour's Terrorism Bill, which came into force in February. For contained within its statutes are laws so rigid that virtually every citizen of this country concerned about the path we are currently treading has at one point in their lives committed an act of terrorism.

The new Terrorism Act is an act of self-defence by a political system that understands the contempt in which it is held by its constituents. Recent events, like the protests against globalisation or against the government's attitude towards the countryside have pushed the government against a wall. In response it is building up its fortress, in the knowledge that with each concession made by our leaders to unelected corporations, the backlash will widen and more and more people not usually prone to such measures as civil disobedience will get involved.

The new Act effectively outlaws support for anything other than the status quo, and labels some of the greatest acts of defiance in history as 'terrorism'. For terrorism has become a club where Saddam may now hold hands with Lord Melchett.

How to join? Try wearing a T-shirt in support of the Free Tibet campaign. That might make you a 'terrorist' under section 13 forbidding the 'wearing of uniform or items of clothing supporting a "proscribed" organisation'. Though not technically 'proscribed', any form of direct action protest against the Chinese attempt to render Tibetans a minority in their own land neatly fits the bill. If that fails, you could organise a mass-fax protest directed at Number 10 calling for a fair referendum on the Euro. It's important to synchronise though, so that 'serious disruption of an electronic system' is achieved. Do that and you're in the club, possibly earning 10 years in the process.

Baking cakes for the fuel blockaders could pass as 'support' for a terrorist group. They were hopelessly criminal, according to the new definition of 'terrorism' which includes 'a threat of action where the use or threat is designed to influence the government'. Providing blankets for road protesters would similarly fit the bill, their campaigns designed, as they were, to 'advance a political, religious or ideological cause', and caused 'serious damage to property'.

Which brings me back to Lord Melchett, another known terrorist. Despite being acquitted following his arrest for uprooting genetically modified crops, he was in clear breach of great chunks of the Act. And because we applauded his action, and that of his colleagues in other anti-GM direct action groups, we would have been nearly as guilty as he. Why? Because merely supporting such an action is deemed 'terrorist'.

Government actions, like the recent bombing of Iraq, do not fall within the jurisdiction of the Act. But what of otherwise legal organisations making use of government-released information? If we were to advise our readers, for instance, that a swift visit to www.environment.detr.gov.uk, (a government website), would reveal names and addresses of areas destined to host trials of herbicide-resistant crops, would that be illegal? It would certainly enable our more active readers to engage in terrorist wrongdoing. And what if we advised our readers local to those areas that the decent thing to do would be decontamination? Would that be a direct abuse of this law?

Yet perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of the new Act lies in the fact that Labour, by passing it, have effectively classed their own heritage as terrorism. Back in 1887 workers in Britain washed their hands of the Tories and Liberals, both of which were seen to have failed them in their efforts to achieve representation at government level. Mounting agitation led to a ban on riots and disorderly conduct which in turn led more than 100,000 workers to gather in Trafalgar Square where they were set upon by police. Three died, 160 were imprisoned, and the Labour Party was effectively born.

The government tells us that the new law will only be used as a defence against extremes. But who is to judge what constitutes extremism? Surely the Act depends entirely on the neutrality of the government of the day? If that is so then why should we believe that any government is truly 'objective'. The very basis of government after all, is subjective views on how things ought to be.

More likely, the new Act will be deployed after the dust has settled, and the people become accustomed to living beneath its shadow. This was the tactic employed on news of Dolly the sheep's 'birth'. Human cloning, we were assured, will never be allowed.

Just months later, the tune has changed dramatically. In the case of 'terrorist' organisations like Greenpeace, the biotech saboteurs and the perilous fuel protesters, it is unlikely the law will be used to its maximum for fear of public outcry. But other less prominent organisations may not be so lucky. For merely a suspicion of wrongdoing gives the powers of lengthy investigation directly to the police.

There is, though, safety in numbers. And the sheer breadth of the new Act ensures that those in breach of it are in big company.

Still feeling left out? Not a problem. Simply pop a copy of this edition of The Ecologist into your pocket and show it around to others. That way, you will be in breach of section 58 which forbids 'the collection of information that may be useful for the purposes of terrorism'.

[Note: To put this new Act into context, the above text includes, according to in-house calculations, eight potentially 'terrorist' offences.

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