Hanging in the balance

By David Talbot / @_davetalbot

Thanks to the government’s new e-petition initiative, any subject with more than 100,000 signatories has to be considered by the House of Commons for debate. The scheme was officially launched yesterday and immediately seized upon by the right wing press and rabid bloggers. The Restore Justice campaign, spearheaded by Paul Staines, aka Guido Fawkes, has called for the death penalty to be brought back for child and police officer murderers. The Daily Mail could barely contain its glee, its front page decreeing ‘MPs to vote on death penalty’. Whilst a vote is by no means a fait accompli, the petition to reinstate capital punishment should have little difficulty in reaching the 100,000 mark – and when the debate comes, abolitionists should welcome it.

It is more than 60 years since the international declaration on human rights made abolition a benchmark of a civilised society. However, as in most countries of the world, there has always been a majority in Britain in favour of the death penalty. Writing in The Times, Paul Staines argued that “capital punishment is the classic example of the disconnect between politicians and people. Most MPs oppose it while a majority of the public has supported it ever since abolition in the Sixties.” He’s absolutely right. Europe is for all intents and purposes abolitionist, and yet the most recent polling conducted in the UK on this issue discovered that 51% of the British public were in favour of capital punishment’s reinstatement.

I am firmly against the death penalty, but I am in favour of parliament debating capital punishment and would support a referendum on whether it should be brought back. I’m convinced that if there was a referendum on capital punishment abolitionists could win it. We must not shy away from debating an issue that has such a groundswell of support amongst members of the public. It would be far worse to decide that such an unsavoury issue is unwholesome, and best left undiscussed. The best way to neutralise a poisonous concept is not to let it fester in the dark. If indeed we truly have faith in our values then we have nothing to fear

The UK is bound by various international treaties and declarations – notably the European Convention on Human Rights – which obligations mean that the restoration of capital punishment in the UK is almost impossible. But to tell the British public that an issue that has such widespread support cannot be implemented because of treaty obligations is an extremely dangerous ploy, and holds the public in contempt.

The arguments against capital punishment are prolonged and profound. It contravenes the most basic human right in a democracy; it does not cut crime; it indulges the desire for revenge not justice; it is more expensive than incarceration and it kills innocent people. It is not news that the death penalty is a cruel, ineffective and immoral, as abolitionists have long rightly argued. But the clamour from those who wish to reinstate it has not diminished.

Almost 50 years ago a Labour MP, Sidney Silverman, proposed a bill that would cease all state executions in Britain. Today, a serious attempt is being made to restore capital punishment. Whilst it is highly unlikely MPs will actually vote through its restoration, tacit public support will no doubt remain. For those of us who oppose capital punishment we need to take this opportunity seriously, and begin marshalling the arguments that led to its abolition.