Watch Out

Civil rights campaigners and British Muslim groups also attacked the proposed new legislation.

Ahmed Versi, editor of Muslim News, a newspaper for British Muslims, warned that if the legislation was passed relations between the Islamic community and the police would only get worse.

“There is a complete lack of confidence in the Government and the police service in the Muslim community. If this legislation is passed, it’s going to get worse.”

Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti said: “The police should not have powers to run around questioning people willy-nilly, otherwise people feel hunted.

“This looks like political machismo, a legacy moment. Stopping and questioning anyone you like will backfire because people will be being criminalised.”

Inayat Bunglawala, spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, argued that the new powers would lead to young Muslim men being “disproportionately targeted“.

He said that of 22,700 stop and searches carried out by the Metropolitan Police last year, only 27 led to terrorism-related arrests.

“Our concern is that what are already dismal results will get even worse,” he added. “It will only succeed in driving a further wedge between the police and sections of the Muslim community. We certainly would support measures that are designed to reduce the terror threat that we are facing.

“However, we believe this requires more than just giving ever-increasing powers to the police.”

Mr Hain said he wanted to see the details of the policy before making any judgment.

But he told BBC1’s Sunday AM: “We cannot have a reincarnation of the old ‘sus’ laws under which mostly black people, ethnic minorities, were literally stopped on sight and that created a really bad atmosphere and an erosion of civil liberties.”

The controversial ‘sus’ laws, permitting police officers to act on suspicion or ‘sus’ alone, have been blamed as one of the causes of riots in Bristol, London and Liverpool in 1980 and 1981.

Counter-terrorism minister Tony McNulty insisted there would be plenty of time to consult on the measures which would not be put to Parliament until the autumn.

He told BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend the stop and question powers were “one of a whole range of things we are looking at with a view to introducing a terrorism bill later in the year.

“People can’t have it both ways; they can’t attack us for quick legislation and, in their terms, ill-thought-out legislation and then when we are saying ‘here’s a whole series of things that based on an analysis of existing counter-terrorism we want to consult on and will afford people the time for that consultation’ attack us when they don’t know what the details are.

“We are still going through internal Government processes. This story is based on a leak. We were very clear we were going to go to Parliament in the next couple of weeks and tell them, in substance, what was likely to be in such a bill but...not as a fait accompli.

“There will be plenty of time to consult with a whole range of people before introducing such a bill probably as late as October, November.”

Meanwhile, Mr Blair hit out today at the “dangerous misjudgment” of putting civil liberties before fighting terror.

He insisted the disappearance of three suspects under control orders was not the fault of the Home Office but society’s “misguided and wrong” priorities.

Writing in today’s Sunday Times, he said: “The fault is not with our services or, in this instance, with the Home Office.

“We have chosen as a society to put the civil liberties of the suspect, even if a foreign national, first. I happen to believe this is misguided and wrong.”

Times Recommends

• Should Knox’s trial even have reached the courtroom?
• All that glitters is not sold in Wright’s world
• Believe it or not, Big Brother is your friend