Just days after the Celtic League condemned successive United Kingdom Labour governments for their assault on civil liberties, a major UK newspaper has echoed our view.

In a series of articles, starting with its front page lead, the UK Independent has castigated the British government. An article by the newspapers law editor, Robert Verkaik, says:

"Labour's inexorable assault on the civil liberties once freely enjoyed by British citizens makes uncomfortable reading for a nation that prides itself on exporting democracy and justice all over the world."

The main thrust of the paper's argument is that this present administration has accelerated a process of dismantling human rights safeguards and freedoms that have existed for decades. Sadly, what emanates from the London government is felt across the United Kingdom and in dependent territories such as the Isle of Man. Both Politicians and journalists in these areas tend to accept the UK governments agenda to dismantle rights with a degree of complicity which is Orwellian

Last week we said:

"Successive UK Labour governments have eroded fundamental liberties by introducing draconian measures. It was a Labour government in the 1970s that allowed torture to be used at interrogation centres in Northern Ireland. They also introduced the discredited Prevention of Terrorism Act which resulted in many people enduring long years of false imprisonment."

When politicians and journalists in Scotland, N. Ireland, Wales and Mann quietly acquiesce to each creeping and pernicious erosion of our rights to (as the Independent put it): "under the cloak of the war on terror" or to "allay the fears of those who believe the country is under siege from antisocial behaviour", we all suffer.

Freedom of speech, thought and conscience is under threat as never before by this 'New Labour' government and its robotic leader, Gordon Brown.

J B Moffatt Director of Information Celtic League

08/03/08