Liberty - Protecting civil liberties, promoting human rights

Picture (L-R): Peter Kellner, President of YouGov; Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty; Lord McNally, Minister of State for Justice; Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, journalist; Simon Hughes MP, Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats

Earlier that day, the comments of Home Office Minister Jeremy Browne ignited the debate on the place of the veil in British society. Fittingly the topic was the first put to our panel and provoked lively debate amongst individuals keen to assert their liberal credentials. For Lib Dem MP Julian Huppert the answer was simple: it is not the business of the state to tell us how to dress. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, well known for her fearless commentary on race and religion, asked our audience how they would react if their daughters took up the veil. Face coverings, she stressed, are not integral to her faith and their wearing is not prescribed by any sacred text. Justice Minister Lord McNally spoke about the importance of face-to-face contact in some social settings and called on Muslim leaders to recognise the norms of British society.

From the Chair, Shami sought to rationalise the debate – having rules for the operating theatre or bank is one thing, but talk of harmonisation around "British norms" carries more worrying implications. Identifying common strands amongst seemingly divergent views, Shami suggested that whilst many feminists feel uncomfortable at the sight of women veiled head to toe – as indeed we do when confronted with topless women on page 3 of The Sun - the issue is how to respond in a liberal society. Banning the veil, or excluding its wearers from the classroom or courtroom, will not empower women. This is a debate better won through education and discussion, the power of argument and the assurance of protection, rather than state coercion.

A second question came from a representative of race equality campaigners Hope Not Hate, and focused on the Lobbying Bill - a rushed and controversial piece of legislation with worrying implications for a crucial kind of political speech. Newly-arrived panellist and Lib Dem Deputy Leader, Simon Hughes MP, took the lead. As liberals, he said, we should avoid legislating except where it’s really necessary; when we do, we must do so with great care and attention. Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which Simon is a member, has already called on the Government to slow down and subject the Bill to proper pre-legislative scrutiny. President of YouGov Peter Kellner, like many of us, saw the value in a Bill designed to stop big money from exerting undue influence on our political processes, but the consensus was that this Bill was both too broad and too narrow – threatening the role of campaigners in political debate whilst failing to tackle the notorious lack of transparency in the world of professional lobbying.

Julian, a veteran of the campaign against the Government’s now defunct snooping legislation, was first to respond to a series of questions interrogating our approach to privacy and online freedom. He spoke with deserved pride about the Lib Dems' role in crushing the Draft Communications Data Bill, and accepted, in the face of revelations about joint UK-US snooping operations, that we were misled by the Home Office about the original justification for the Bill. The panel discussed the false dichotomy so often set up between privacy and security, with Lord McNally stressing the need for balance and maintaining that there should be a limit to what the state knows about the individual in a free society. Simon added that the qualified protections in the European Convention on Human Rights give us the framework we need to protect rights while safeguarding the national interest.

Drawing the event to a close, Lord McNally offered a staunch defence of the Convention on Human Rights and our Human Rights Act. “I want us to go out and win the argument, even in difficult places," he said. "Of course our human rights legislation will defend criminal suspects but also the grandma in the care home, the child that has been abused; it will protect the right of people to protest against politicians. If we don't keep to the Convention, what hope is there for the gay man in Russia, for the political activist in Belarus? We have to be resolute in taking this on. We will be at the barricades and Liberty will be there with us."

Fellow Liberty member Simon Hughes was just as strong in his resolve, asserting without hesitation that the protections in the Human Rights Act were a red line; they must not be distorted or diluted. Yasmin, like many of us in the audience, was heartened by these strong principled statements. Recognising that the battle can sometimes be difficult, she stressed that, in this particular fight, we must always be willing to make the hard case.