Statement on Membership of Terrorist Organisations

Clearly there are some organisations and networks which should be proscribed as terrorist – Isis and Al Qaeda among them. In such instances membership should be a criminal offence because it’s crystal clear that the group is directly involved in violent acts and terrorism.

I have been vocal in my condemnation of terrorism and worked hard to amend, strengthen and improve the counter terrorism and security legislation brought before MPs.

When responding to the Government’s legislative proposals I have consistently argued that resources must be targeted at the proper investigative work of tracking down and following those whom there are real grounds to suspect them of terrorism.

Yet, instead, we have seen a raft of proposals that focus on things like retaining the personal communications data of every single citizen. And on preventing British citizens from returning home to the UK where they can, as appropriate, be brought to justice, be placed under surveillance or be part of deradicalisation programmes. This approach risks being counterproductive and making us much less safe, something I have argued in the House of Commons, for example, here and here and which is also argued by the Institute for Race Relations amongst others.

I’ve also argued that the Government’s broad brush approach undermines civil liberties – in the case of the blanket retention of data this was backed up by a recent ruling by the European Court of Justice. You can read my comments about this in the House of Commons here.

The way in organisations are proscribed as terrorist is another example of the Government casting the net far too wide and undermining civil liberties in the process. As a result we’ve seen anti-racism campaigns and environmental groups defined as terrorist. The Green Party does not believe membership alone of such organisations should be criminalised – the law should address people’s action, not their thoughts or beliefs.