Quotes of the Day

No one's life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session." Mark Twain's old saw got a British twist last week after the country started examining a dozen stern antiterror proposals Prime Minister Tony Blair had announced before leaving for a sunshine break. His plans include a new law to ban radical groups, extending pretrial detention, and listing extremist centers and bookshops that will trigger deportation for any foreigner "actively engaged" with them. The measures made headlines in a country still absorbing the reality of homegrown suicide bombers after the July 7 and July 21 terror attacks, but not all the headlines were good. Some legal experts saw a slapdash, populist quality in the proposals. And moderate Muslims, the group the government needs to help weed out and isolate British radicals, are uneasy about Blair's new strategy to curb those who preach jihad, not just practice it.

That the paint wasn't quite dry on the antiterror plan was evident when the government flip-flopped over the fate of Omar Bakri Muhammad, a Syrian-born Islamic preacher who has been a refugee in Britain since 1985. He established the British branch of Hizb-ut-Tahrir and later al-Muhajiroun, organizations the government now wants to ban as dangerous proponents of jihadism. Some of al-Muhajiroun's alumni have been suicide bombers abroad and have links with al-Qaeda figures. Bakri himself has issued a fatwa advocating death for Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and said he would never report a suicide bomber to the authorities. As leaks hinted (improbably) that he might be tried for treason, he left for what he said was a holiday in Lebanon. Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott tried to bolster the case for new regulations to exclude or deport radicals when he said the government needed the laws to keep Bakri out. "At the moment he has the right to come in and out," Prescott said. "It's not a dictatorship, for God's sake!"

But the uproar this produced in right-wing newspapers (also incensed that Bakri and his seven children live on state benefits) prompted the government to ban him under existing powers after all. Perhaps a moot point: Bakri was arrested in Lebanon last week (though released the next day), and Syria has requested his extradition.

Bakri's travails were only one sign that the "rules of the game are changing," as Blair had promised. On Thursday, 10 men were arrested for deportation, including Abu Qatada, who fled to Britain in 1993 after being accused in Jordan of inciting terrorism. The government has considered him a dangerous jihadist for years. It imprisoned him without charge for over two years until the courts declared it a violation of the Human Rights Act, and has kept him under house arrest since. It couldn't return him to Jordan, where he was convicted in absentia in 2000 of conspiring to attack U.S. and Israeli tourists; the courts hold that deporting anyone to a country with a record of torture violates the Human Rights Act.

The day before Qatada's arrest, Jordan signed a pact with Britain to treat all deportees humanely. The undertaking is supposed to be monitored by an independent group, which is not yet chosen. The other nine deportees come mainly from Algeria, which is regularly cited for torture by human-rights groups. It has only just started discussing a good-treatment pledge with London. That only adds to the complexity of the legal challenges the men can raise.

Civil-liberties groups see an oppressive streak in many of Blair's initiatives. One is a statute to ban "condoning, glorifying or justifying terrorism anywhere in the world." Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil-rights organization Liberty, calls this law "the broadest speech offense imaginable." In 2002, Blair's wife Cherie said, "As long as young people feel they have got no hope but to blow themselves up, you are never going to make progress" between Palestinians and Israelis, causing an uproar. Downing Street later issued a statement saying Cherie Blair did not condone suicide bombings. But in future, could remarks like that be read as "justifying" terrorism?

Even some of Blair's own aides think he's spoiling for a fight with judges over their willingness to strike down his antiterror laws on human-rights grounds. Charles Falconer, the government's chief legal officer and a Blair loyalist, indicated the government might pass a law instructing judges to balance individual rights enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights with national security. "Blair figures he'll have the public on his side after the bombings," says one aide. "I'm not so sure."

Even less sure are British Muslims. In a MORI poll last week, 60% of Muslims surveyed said suspected terrorists should not be detained without trial, compared to 36% for the public as a whole. Asghar Bukhari, spokesman for the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, which wants Muslims to campaign and have more of a voice, says Blair's 12-point plan is "like a cork in a volcano" that "intensifies the us vs. them feeling." Chakrabarti says that the threat posed by homegrown suicide bombers means the government's most pressing need is "intelligence from Muslims. You are asking them to rat on their husbands, sons, imams, and they will do that only if they feel confident." And intelligence seems to be in short supply. Last week, several officials expressed frustration with what they knew about the July 7 and July 21 bombers; one said, the "trail had gone cold." No link has yet been established between the two groups, or back to al-Qaeda from either. On every front, says one investigator, "we have a long way to go."

• J.F.O. McALLISTER / London
• Will Britain’s tough new antiterror laws alienate the country’s moderate Muslims?