“DEMOCRATIC banditry” shoved state snooping laws through the Commons yesterday in less time than it takes to sign up for a broadband connection.

Principled MPs spoke out as Con-Dem ministers cited emergency measures to rush their “snooper’s charter” through Parliament in the space of a single afternoon. 

The Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill will legitimise the government’s controversial “blanket retention” policy, which requires internet service providers to log details of all users’ online activity for inspection by police, spooks and other government agencies. 

Tory Home Secretary Theresa May scowled from the largely empty benches as her Junior Minister James Brokenshire repeatedly swung between declaring an “emergency” and assuring the “status quo.”

Both Labour and Lib Dem leaders gave their backing to the Bill, but around 49 backbenchers stood up to the coalition’s timetabling chicanery.

Labour MP Diane Abbott branded the tactic “an insult to the intelligence of the House,” while colleague Tom Watson noted that MPs were granted less than an hour to submit amendments before the Bill’s reading.

“It’s democratic banditry reminiscent of a rogue state. Those who put together this Bill should be ashamed,” he said.

The reading came as media coverage fixated instead on a high-profile Cabinet reshuffle, with the Open Rights Group’s executive director Jim Killock describing the timing and pace as “very convenient.”

He said: “This is an attempt to close debate down and avoid having surveillance anywhere near being an election issue.

“We’ve yet to have any of this debate. The key point is that blanket retention has been ruled unlawful, but will carry on.

“That’s a serious breach of the rule of law and the three main parties are all complicit in it,” he said.

The Bill was waved through as Liberty, Privacy International and Amnesty International fight Britain’s secret service GCHQ in court over their right to monitor their communications. 

Liberty said “interference” in its work by spooks breaks a European Court of Justice ruling that blanket data retention is an unlawful breach of privacy. 

And the groups accused Westminster leaders who backed the Bill of helping spooks to block their legal challenge.

Liberty legal director James Welch said: “Not content with forcing service providers to keep details of our calls and browsing histories, the government is fighting to retain the right to trawl through our communications with anyone outside and many inside the country.

“When will it learn that it is neither ethical nor efficient to turn everyone into suspects?”

Meanwhile the Blacklist Support Group’s Dave Smith said the Bill was especially worrying for union members after revelations that the Consulting Association’s blacklist had contained data from police or intelligence agencies.

“The systematic spying on trade unionists, environmental and anti-racist activists by undercover police and the security services is something that needs to be exposed and stamped out, not covered up and extended,” he said.