Are these Britain’s ‘enabling acts’? Concern as state control tightens

Features / 23 March 2020

As the government races emergency powers through Parliament to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic, STEVEN WALKER looks at Britain’s record of creeping authoritarianism and asks if we should be afraid

Some of the new powers now enjoyed by police officers are used to harass young black people. Suspects can be stopped and searched, interrogated with no legal counsel present, have their fingerprints collected and then be bailed and released if there is not enough evidence to arrest them.

Steven Walker

Recent

People traverse a street in Havana, May 25, 2026

Features / 4 June 2026

A new McCarthyism? The US threat to Cuba solidarity groups

4 June 2026

Special report by PEOPLE’S WORLD

Eyes Wright / 4 June 2026

Culture and the class war in Italy — from the Venice Biennale to Berlinguer’s legacy

4 June 2026

NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left

Features / 4 June 2026

Siege socialism or barbarism: why we must stand with Cuba

4 June 2026

CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak

Features / 4 June 2026

Knesset conference on settler violence is itself violently disrupted

4 June 2026

AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right

Features / 3 June 2026

Hands off Raul Castro!

3 June 2026

Born on this day in 1931, the heroic revolutionary faces a dangerous new wave of White House aggression. We must treat his birthday as a rallying cry to resist the illegal siege of Cuba, writes ROGER McKENZIE

Features / 3 June 2026

The Palestine solidarity industry

3 June 2026

RAMZY BAROUD decries the rats of Gaza, the rodent and human type. Both abound as profiteering from tragedy reaches obscene levels

EMERGENCY powers being quickly enacted in response to the Covid-19 pandemic offer a rare glimpse of how quickly the state can trample on civil liberties and the rule of law. Currently, the 2004 Civil Contingencies Act is being invoked. This legislation unilaterally gives any government minister extraordinary power to do anything, anywhere to anyone without explanation. Margaret Thatcher used similar powers to attack strikers during the 1984 miners’ dispute, using the police as her storm troopers.

Tony Blair’s New Labour was described by Thatcher as “my finest creation.” So he proved when the Criminal Justice Act was introduced in 2003, allowing police to bail suspects without even taking them to a police station, with officers enjoying broad discretion as to which suspects should be treated in this manner. The Act also allowed the police to take DNA samples from anyone who was arrested.

The list of arrestable offences was expanded greatly by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001, Police Reform Act 2002 and Criminal Justice Act 2003. DNA samples can be kept on file indefinitely, even if that person is not charged with anything, and there are currently no procedures for getting the police to surrender or destroy such a sample, raising serious privacy concerns.

Support the Morning Star

You have reached the free limit.

Subscribe to continue reading.

Become a subscriber