What the hypocrisy of Britain’s "anti-terror" policies reveals about the west’s political and legal system

In the week when MPs vote on the government’s latest anti-terror bill, Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain will address a London seminar and open a discussion on some of these proposed ‘anti-terror’ policies, including the controversial proposal for 42-days pre-charge detention.

Politicians have been playing political games in trying to force through the bill. The Parliamentary process and criminal justice system has been shown as a farce. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has used the fear of a humiliating defeat to garner support from within his own party. At the same time the Conservative party also plays politics with issues of ‘terrorism’ and ‘extremism’ in a hypocritical manner, calling for the banning of Islamic political organisations whilst claiming to believe in ‘liberty’! Each party tries to look tougher than the other, cynically stoking public fears. Government ‘for the people’ has so easily descended into simply ‘playing to the mob’.

This political posturing, together with the policies employed in the ‘war on terror’ across the western world, highlights how fragile their political and legal system really is. The seminar will also try to illustrate how these same policies are employed by western governments in their attempt to obstruct the return of Islam’s political and legal system in the Muslim world, an attempt that only further discredits secular democratic systems and strengthens the support for an Islamic alternative across the Muslim world.