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Police and Justice Bill

No, not paranoid. We were accused of using conspiracy theories. But we can imagine how the strategic priority provisions might be used in the wrong hands. Local priorities might be set aside and priority given to controlling disruptive and unpatriotic elements. Had the Government of the United States, for example—a fundamentally democratic and tolerant country—been given powers such as those before us during the McCarthyite era, they would have been able to set policing priorities that might have posed a real threat to the civil liberties of American citizens. The powers before us contain the same possibility. In the current political environment, and under current political pressures, particular Muslim or minority groups might find themselves on the wrong end of policing priorities that followed a populist agenda. We may not be too far away from that already. Those priorities could be imposed on police authorities to give them a specific steer on the way in which to direct policing in their area. The paragraphs confer serious powers on the Secretary of State which, in a free society, are best left in the hands of police authorities. I beg to move.