Out of Afghanistan, into a police state
Henry Porter writes on the “Liberty Central” section of the Guardian Comment is Free web site:
The former foreign office minister Kim Howells suggests that the policy in Afghanistan is not working and it is time to consider withdrawing troops and putting the money saved as result into the UK Border Agency and greater surveillance and monitoring in Britain.
Like so many in the Labour party, Howells’s only response to the failure of a government policy is to propose a general attack on freedom and privacy, placing the nation which is already regarded as the most closely monitored after China and North Korea under even greater surveillance.
He notes:
His deduction that Britain must retreat and retrench, ignoring all obligations to Nato and the international treaties we have signed, is characteristic of someone who veered from outright communism to a point in the 90s where he could say that the word “socialism” could be “humanely phased out”. He has the classic New Labour profile and like fellow migrants from the far left – Straw, Reid, Blunkett and Clarke – he has retained a love of state intrusion and is, as they all are, an enthusiast for ID cards. There is a part of Howells that remains firmly rooted in the beliefs that ruled east Germany until 20 years ago. Actually, what he advocates in this proposed withdrawal from the world is more akin to a British version of Albania, a locked-down police state with stringent border controls and unwavering state control.
