There is a General Election next month and many Members of Parliament are asking for your vote to return them to their seats. Your vote gives them the mandate to write the laws of the land under which we all live.

On 21 November 2001 the majority of MPs voted to pass sections 21-23 of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, which gave authority to the Home Secretary to order the indefinite detention without trial of any foreign national "he believed was a terrorist" if there was "a state of emergency threatening the life of the nation". Both these propositions were matters of his opinion alone, and not open to review by an independent court.

The MPs who voted for this law are listed at:

 http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/division.php?date=2001-11-21&number=76&showall=yes

You might notice that the Tory Party abstained on mass at this time, but there was a vote on 3 March 2004 to renew the law which they did attend:

 http://publicwhip.org.uk/division.php?date=2004-03-03&number=71&showall=yes

On 16 December 2004 the Law Lords, the highest court in the land, finally heard the case of someone who had been indefinitely detained without charge under this law for over two years. They ruled that there was self-evidently no state of emergency threatening the life of the nation that could justify the application of such a law. Lord Hoffmann went further and said that the real threat to the life of the nation comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these.

Do you believe that a politician should have the right to imprison people for years without showing any evidence, and claim to be protecting you from extreme danger without saying what the danger is?

If your MP has voted "Aye" in either of these divisions, and they are seeking re-election, write down the relevant dates and motions which they voted for so you can ask them -- specifically -- what they had in mind when they were passing laws such as this. Ask them if they regret having voted for is. Ask them if they will vote decisively to repeal this law when they next have the opportunity. Ask them if they are sure we are living in a state of emergency that threatens the life of the nation. Ask them how, if are willing to play games with our liberties in a time of peace, we can trust them when something really awful happens.

The point of democracy is that we don't get a Government that oppresses them. Our elected representatives have no right to take away our liberties based on lies.