John Carvel and Lucy Ward
London Guardian
Wednesday, January 24, 2007

An overwhelming majority of people in Britain are willing to surrender civil liberties to help tackle the threat of terrorism, the nation's leading social research institute will disclose today.
The survey found seven in every 10 people think compulsory identity cards for all adults would be "a price worth paying" to reduce the threat of terrorism. Eight in 10 say the authorities should be able to tap the phones of people suspected of involvement in terrorism, open their mail and impose electronic tagging or home curfews.

The findings come from the annual British Social Attitudes survey, based on interviews with a sample of 3,000 adults by the National Centre for Social Research.
It found a declining sense of Britishness, particularly among English people who are becoming more inclined to assert their "Englishness";

It also found greater stress at work and a yearning among working parents to spend more time with their children, as well as overwhelming public support for euthanasia, allowing a doctor to end the life of a patient with an incurable or painful illness who asks to be helped to die.

The report said support for civil liberties in Britain peaked in 1990, before going into a steep decline. In 1990, 9% of adults thought the police should be allowed to question suspects for up to a week without letting them see a solicitor. In the latest interviews, this nearly trebled to 25%

In 1990, 40% disagreed with the proposition that every adult should carry an identity card. That proportion has nearly halved, to 22%.

Much of this hardening of attitudes occurred in the mid-1990s, before people's views were influenced by possible dangers of Islamic terrorism. The researchers decided the main reason was a slackening of concern for civil liberties among voters who were influenced by the tough rhetoric of Tony Blair and his law and order spokesmen. The proportion of Labour voters opposing compulsory identity cards fell from 45% in 1990 to 15% in 2005 as the party changed its stance.

Although the threat of terrorism did not cause the change in public mood, it was now being used by Labour and Conservative politicians to mobilise support for even tougher measures. The poll found people were less inclined to support civil liberties when asked questions mentioning terrorism.

About 80% said electronic tagging of terrorist suspects was "a price worth paying" to combat terrorism. The same proportion backed home curfews, travel restrictions and detention without charge for more than a week. Less than a quarter of the population said torturing terror suspects would be "a price worth paying" and only 35% would accept a ban on peaceful protests and demonstrations. But the nation is almost equally divided on whether people charged with terrorism-related crime should be denied a jury trial - with 50% finding that acceptable and 45% unacceptable.

Conor Gearty, professor of human rights law at the London School of Economics and joint author of the report's civil rights chapter, said: "The very mention of something being a counter-terrorism measure makes people more willing to contemplate the giving up of their freedoms. It is as though society is in the process of forgetting why past generations thought these freedoms to be so very important."

The report said the British have bemoaned loss of civil liberties for centuries. Even the barons who forced King John to sign Magna Carta in 1215 said they wanted to regain freedoms they had enjoyed under Henry II. In fact civil liberties grew steadily over time. "The question posed by the data generated by this survey is whether this progressive trend is at risk of being put into reverse." Politicians of all parties should be more disciplined in playing the counter-terrorism card in public debate. "It is a trump, certainly, but overplayed it has the potential to completely distort the whole game," the report said.

But fear of terrorism did not reduce people's support for human rights in the international arena. About 84% agreed that "when a country is at war it must always abide by international human rights law." And 78% rejected the proposition that "during a war it is acceptable for the armed forces to torture people."

Other research showed less than a third of trade union members think they are getting good value from membership. About 29% of employees belonged to a union in 2005, compared with 33% in 1998. "Unions seem to have lost the ability to secure higher wages for their members. In 1998, union members earned on average 8% more than non-members, after taking account of their type of jobs. By 2005, this difference had evaporated," the report said. Neither unions nor employers took advantage of opportunities to promote a closer partnership that were created by the Blair government, it added.

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