The Government faces a potential defeat at the hands of rebels, the Tories and Lib Dems over safeguards introduced to the shameful "fast track extradition" agreement Britian holds with the US. Back in the summer, to much press coverage, the so-called Natwest Three were extradited for an alleged fraud against Natwest which Natwest says did not happen.
Under the one-sided extradition agreement that Britiain has, the US no longer has to provide prima facie evidence for extradition. This evening the Commons will vote on a Lords Ammendment to require a judge to only allow extradition if it is in the "interest of justice" for a trial to be held abroad.
The Labour rebels are being led by the firebrand socialist John McDonnell (he who wants to be leader) and it's fair to say that anti-americanism populism is far more likely a driver for him than anything else. This said, anything that might course the Government humiliation is surely a good thing?
5 comments:
Slightly unfair on McDonnell. It could just be that allowing another country to extradite your citizens without having to provide any evidence might gnaw at the civil liberties conscious?
Heaven forbid it might just be a principled stand. see http://www.freebabarahmad.net/ for what this extradition law means in practice
I'd love to think he was being principled, I fear not though.
I suspect it's about as principled as Jack the lad's stance on the veil.
It's a daft and biased system that operates so blatantly in America's favour at present.
Sometimes people do the right thing for the wrong reasons. Surely Dizzy that is better than doing the wrong thing for the right reasons ? (which is what I think Labour do a lot at the moment)
Nich, I don't think I said that doing the right thing for the wrong reasons was not better than doing the wrong thing for the right reasons so I don't see the relevance of the question.
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