The Blair government has announced its intention of bringing forward plans for new “antiterrorist” legislation that would give freer rein for police spying and other restrictions on rights in this country. It has won backing for the new law from the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats.

The bill would outlaw “preparing, training for and inciting” terrorist acts. According to the London Independent, “intent to acquire chemicals” to make a bomb, receiving “terrorist training,” and accessing “terrorist websites” would be subject to prosecution under the law.

The new legislation would create a new offense called “indirect incitement to terrorism” that would “make it a crime to glorify or condone terrorism,” the Independent reported. Home Office minister Hazel Blears said individuals who made statements like “Isn’t it marvelous this has happened?” or “these people are martyrs” could be prosecuted under such a provision. “Direct incitement” is already outlawed, she said.

Asked on BBC Radio’s “Any Questions” if he would support the proposed new “antiterrorist” legislation, George Galloway, a member of Parliament for the Respect party, a formation that includes the British Socialist Workers Party, said he would have to wait and see. He called for hiring “10, 20, or 30 thousand more customs officers” along with more police, and said that every person entering Britain should be stopped and searched.

Meanwhile, police have continued to occupy the working-class area of Beeston in the city of Leeds, where four men accused of carrying out the bombings lived. Some 600 people have been evacuated as the police searched homes in the area.

Cops used a battering ram to break into the local Iqra Learning Centre and Bookshop. According to signs outside the shop, the center provides Islamic literature, media services, youth activities, orphan sponsorship, seminars, and presentations. A number of local residents were quoted in the media objecting to the raid. “The bookshop has absolutely nothing to do with terrorism. It is just a place where people go to meet, have a chat and read books,” one resident, Arif, told Leeds Today.

Police announced they arrested one person from the area July 14 in connection with the bombings.

An Egyptian scientist who taught chemistry at Leeds University has also been arrested in Cairo at the demand of British authorities.

Police have also pressured Muslim leaders to step up collaboration in targeting “extremists.” The Muslim Council of Britain is discussing whether to declare a fatwa (order) against suicide bombers, according to its secretary general, Iqbal Sacranie, but rejected the suggestion of Metropolitan Police commissioner Ian Blair that they establish a hotline for Muslims to report “extremist activities.”

On July 14 the government organized a two-minute silence, which was heavily promoted by the media. In central London, the authorities stopped traffic. In many but not all workplaces bosses organized for workers to observe the silence.

Observance of the two-minute silence on the job, however, did not necessarily translate into workers subordinating disputes with their employers.

At the large Halls meat plant in Broxburn, near Edinburgh, the silence was well-prepared by the bosses and observed by the bulk of the workforce, according to Peter Clifford, a member of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers who works there. “But that afternoon many workers were miffed when the company announced, in response to the union’s wage demands, a paltry wage offer of 2.9 percent, with strings,” he reported.

Clifford, who stood as a parliamentary candidate for the Communist League in the recent general elections, did not join the two-minute silence and explained to co-workers that he opposed the government’s “national unity” campaign. “The political discussions at work go on, and I continue to be part of them,” he said.

The Blair government has also used its “antiterrorist” campaign to justify ongoing moves to send thousands of troops to Afghanistan. Two squadrons of British special forces are scheduled to leave within weeks, according to government officials. They will provide reconnaissance for an expected deployment of more than 5,000 troops, which will conduct operations along the Afghan-Pakistan border. About 1,000 British troops are currently in Afghanistan as part of the NATO force there, and British Harrier jets have joined U.S. aircraft in recent combat missions.

On July 19 Pakistani police announced they had arrested seven men “with possible links to the London suicide bombers,” the Associated Press reported. British government officials have called on the Pakistani government to crack down on the activities of Islamic religious “madrassah” schools in Pakistan as a source of “terrorist training.”

Some “Labour Party left” and right-wing Tory members of Parliament have seized on the July 7 events to criticize the Blair government’s foreign policy from a nationalist standpoint. They have argued that the London bombings are a consequence of the British government supporting an “American” war in Iraq.  
 
 
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