WHEN I was first elected to Parliament, I listened to some very wise words from the late Joan Maynard, MP for Sheffield Brightside, a champion of the farmworkers’ cause. She told me that if both front benches were agreed on something, it was probably bad, and certainly not in the interests of ordinary people.    

It was with this in mind I listened to the discussion yesterday about the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers (Drip) Bill.  

In April, the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union issued a very long judgement which effectively questioned the legality of the existing legislation on data retention.  

The government have had three months to respond to this judgement and this they did a few days ago. David Cameron announced that unless a new law was passed through all its parliamentary stages by the end of today, then there will be huge threats of terrorism and the government will be unable to track down criminals and offenders. 

It is claimed that there was a huge debate within the coalition about the terms of this Bill, and that these issues were only finally resolved last week.

Bizarrely the leader of the House announced that all stages of the Bill would be passed in the Commons in one day and it will go to the Lords the next day before being passed into law the day afterwards.  

This was agreed by both front benches, and serious concerns expressed about the timing of the debate by many civil liberties organisations were brushed aside as the two front benches got together to railroad this Bill through.  

In her speech Theresa May claimed that this was “narrow and limited legislation on communications data and interception.” 

In this she was supported by Labour’s Yvette Cooper who claimed that the Bill reflected the balance between liberty and security and privacy and safety in a democracy. 

A number of us disagreed with this, as the Fixed Clause Bill requires all telecommunications companies to retain all records of all of their customers’ usage for 12 months to be made available merely on request to the police or Home Office.  

The Bill also claims extraterritorial jurisdiction in that any internet provider based anywhere in the world could also be prosecuted under this piece of legislation.  

The government acknowledged that the Bill is draconian at the very least, and is set to expire by December 31 2016. 

There were two strands to the debate yesterday. Tom Watson led the amendment, which was to force the Bill to expire through the so-called sunset clause at the end of this year, but this was eventually heavily defeated in favour of the existing 2016 date.  

The second sub agenda is a very ominous one within the Conservative Party, under a lot of pressure from Ukip, which is to challenge any international court judgements that are critical of Britain.  

Thus the Conservatives want to remove Britain from the European Court of Human Rights, and it was quite clear that Theresa May and many others would be much happier if there was no European Court decision which protects individuals and their privacy. 

In creating an atmosphere of crisis and urgency, the government got its way with the support of the Labour front bench. The day was a travesty of parliamentary democracy as a major and serious piece of invasive legislation was passed through almost all its stages in a single day. 

MPs had no opportunity to seriously discuss this with constituents, and while Liberty and other human rights groups did manage to put forward a useful briefing, the whole process was very rushed.

On the back foot, the government’s Bill is said to be of short-term duration and a temporary measure. Exactly the same was claimed over the Prevention of Terrorism Act in 1974 and which was duly renewed every six months until it was finally replaced by the even more draconian Terrorism Act 2000, some 26 years later.   

This bill gives the state the power to intercept anyone’s emails or phone records, and exactly as Edward Snowden claimed, the British government is doing to us exactly as the Obama administration is doing in the US.

The Labour Party ought to think quite carefully about this. One of the Achilles’ heels in the 2010 election was the perception that the Labour governments of Blair and Brown, while commendably passing the Human Rights Act and equality legislation, were too ready to embrace the security services’ agenda on surveillance.

In the joint briefing from Liberty, Article 19, Open Rights Group, English Pen and Big Brother Watch said: “In introducing this legislation, the security services, Civil Service and coalition, and the opposition leaders, have demonstrated a staggering disregard for parliamentary democracy and the rule of law.”  

They then go on to say that “given widespread public, international and commercial concern about the government’s surveillance powers, and the likely unlawful nature of at least part of the Bill’s substance, we strongly advise parliamentarians to amend the sunset expiry date to December 31, 2014.”

As Elizabeth Sankey of Liberty said: “This fast-track legislation contains sweeping surveillance powers that will affect every man, woman and child in the UK.”

n Jeremy Corbyn is Labour MP for Islington North.