Labour’s torture shame

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

There are some things on which the Labour Party should be beyond reproach. We may not always have cared for the sick and disabled as well as we might have liked. We may not have narrowed the gap between rich and poor. We may not have properly regulated the financial sector in a way that could have shielded us from the worst of the global financial crisis. But at the very least we should not condone torture, or look the other way as our allies indulge in it.

We definitely shouldn’t be complicit in the transfer of British nationals to a prison where we believe abuses might be occurring. That’s beyond the pale for Labour. That should be beyond the pale for any political party. There can be no legitimate motivation for torture. There can be no excuses. The ends never justify the means if the means are repeated torture and abuse.

Yet the Guardian report today on the Guantanamo files says that “The British government became a partner in the US programme of extraordinary rendition even after learning that it involved the torture of detainees.”

That is despite denials by ministers that they knew anything about renditions. In 2005, Jack Straw referred to “conspiracy theories” about the UK’s involvement in rendition, yet four years earlier the Guardian reports that he issued a secret memo which described the transfer of British nationals to Guantanamo Bay as “the best way to meet our counter-terrorism obectives“.

It appears that the British government adopted – at best – a “see no evil, hear no evil” strategy on US abuse and torture. Straw’s secret telegram said:

“It is for the US authorities to determine the detail of how these prisoners should be handled. They have told us they would be treated humanely.”

That may be legally correct, but it is morally dubious to say the least when there were legitimate concerns over treatment at Guantanamo before the transfers took place. The very least that Labour ministers were guilty of was allowing the issue of torture to drop down their list of priorities. That is being generous.

We should all be incredibly ashamed of these actions (or inaction) that were carried out in our name – not only as Labour supporters but as UK citizens. As a party, we need to come to terms with this disgraceful episode from our time in government, in the hope that we can ensure it could never happen again. As a country, we need stronger safeguards to ensure that the fear of terrorism never clouds the judgement of politicians to the extent that looking the other way on torture or abuse seems like a credible course of action.