The Assault on Liberty: What Went Wrong with Rights

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Dominic Raab. The Assault on Liberty: What Went Wrong with Rights

The Assault on Liberty. Dominic Raab

Table of Contents

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

1 Runnymede

2 Security versus Liberty

3 Short-circuiting the Justice System

4 Surveillance Society

5 Rights Contagion

6 The Risks of Rights

7 The Next Chapter of British Liberty

CONCLUSION

NOTES

INDEX

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

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What Went Wrong with Rights

Title Page

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This attempted compromise, coupling civil and political liberties with other ‘rights’, was reflected in the approach of continental European governments, which had historically, philosophically and culturally been much more susceptible to socialist influence. The development of social democratic movements on the continent can be seen as an attempt to forge a compromise between the two conceptions of freedom that otherwise stand in clear and unequivocal conflict with each other. The influence of this attempted synthesis – between Marxism and liberalism – has extended beyond domestic politics, to the development of a common European identity through the supranational institutions of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg and the EU in Brussels.

In Britain these twin strands of socialism lay beneath the surface of the New Labour project that swept Tony Blair into power in 1997. Both ran against the traditional grain of British liberty. Marx had a less powerful, but nonetheless enduring, influence in Britain. New Labour had successfully concealed, rather than extinguished, the orthodox brand of socialism, and Tony Blair managed formally to dislocate the Labour Party from the dogma of public ownership of the means of production during his famous ‘Clause Four’ moment in 1994. Nevertheless, the Labour Party’s updated constitution still stubbornly described it as a ‘socialist’ party.

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