The Bonfire of the Liberties New Labour, Human Rights, and the Rule of Law [Hardcover]

The Bonfire of the Libertiesis a provocative book which confronts the corrosion of civil liberties under successive New Labour governments since 1997. It argues that the last decade has seen a wholesale failure of constitutional principle and exposed the futility of depending on legal rights to restrict the power of executive government. It considers the steps necessary to prevent the continued decline of political standards, arguing that only through rebalancing political power can civil liberties be adequately protected

Relying on extensive new research of inaccessible sources, the book examines the major battlegrounds over civil liberties under New Labour, including the growth and abuse of police power, state surveillance and counter-terrorist measures. It unfolds a compelling narrative of the major battles fought before Parliament and in the courts, and attacks the failure of the political and legal systems to offer protection to those suffering abuses of their civil liberty at the hands of an aggressive Executive. In doing so, it offers a definitive account of the struggle for civil liberty in modern Britain, and a controversial argument for the reforms necessary to contain executive power.

Introduction
1. The Growth of Police Powers
2. Surveillance and the Right to Privacy
3. Freedom of Assembly and the Right of Public Protest
4. Free Speech and the National Security State
5. A Permanent Emergency and the Eclipse of Human Rights
6. From Detention - to Control Orders - to Rendition
7. Conclusion - Political Power not Legal Rights

A thought-provoking addition to current debates regarding the best form of protection of human rights in the United Kingdom, and will no doubt add fuel to the fire of those already calling for a reassertion of the supremacy of Parliamentary sovereignty in the face of perceived attacks from unelected judges under the Human Rights Act 1998
--Jane Gordon, Public lC%