Parties wrestle over new anti-terrorism powers
The prime minister is set to announce new measures in the House of Commons to counter the threat from the Islamic State, amid tense negotiations between the two coalition parties.
Talks between officials from the Tory and Lib Dem sides of the government have so far failed to finalise the package.
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said the country faced “very real threats” but denied the government’s plans were a “knee-jerk response”.
Among the options being considered is a return of “internal exile” powers similar to those contained in the control orders scrapped by the coalition.
The independent reviewer of terrorism legislation David Anderson has recommended the return of a power to relocate suspects, which the current terrorism prevention and investigation measures (Tpims) lack, but with a greater degree of freedom than under control orders.
Other measures under consideration would make it easier to remove people’s passports through temporary seizure powers at the border in order to prevent them travelling to the Middle East trouble zones where they could link up with Islamic State (IS) extremists.
Officials are also looking at the prospect of a “temporary bar” on British citizens suspected of terrorist activity abroad returning, a measure which would stop short of stripping them of citizenship and rendering them stateless, but former Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell warned that such a move could be illegal.
But such a move would be politically difficult for the Lib Dems, who strongly opposed the control order regime.
Several hundred British nationals are estimated to have travelled to Iraq and Syria to join the IS uprising, and other western European countries have also been a source of foreign fighters.