LONDON (Reuters) - The British government faced fierce opposition on Monday to its plans for new anti-terror legislation that will sweep aside the centuries-old principle of the right to a trial.
Drawn up in response to the September 11 attacks in the United States, the legislation -- to be voted on in the House of Commons later in the day -- has sparked bitter criticism from human rights groups and prompted a rebellion by the government's own members of parliament.
The bill will allow Home Secretary (interior minister) David Blunkett to order foreigners suspected of involvement in terrorism to be detained without trial, which civil rights groups say would undermine basic principles of justice and freedom.
As the protest grew, the government remained defiant. "We make absolutely no apology whatsoever for introducing a bill of this nature at this current time," Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman said. "The public understands why we have to take measures to protect ourselves."
Blair commands a massive 167-seat majority in the 659-seat House of Commons, meaning Blunkett is likely to be able to push the bill through anyway.
But in a signal of the strength of feeling against the bill, 32 of Blair's own Labour MPs rebelled and voted against key parts of the legislation last Wednesday.
Three of the rebels were former Labour ministers and the revolt was the biggest since Blair's Labour Party won re-election in June.
EMERGENCY RESPONSE
And his critics will not let it pass without a fight.
Britain's third party, the Liberal Democrats, said its MPs would vote against the government -- and stall the bill's progress in the upper chamber, the House of Lords -- unless Blunkett toned it down.
Party leader Charles Kennedy told the BBC the bill posed too much of a threat to the civil liberties of ordinary citizens.
"You can take effective action against people without the majority of the law-abiding, peacekeeping individual people in this country having to suffer," he said.
Opposition Conservatives accused the government of using the bill to rush through other laws which they said have not been properly thought through, such as a clause on incitement to religious hatred.
"The anti-terrorism bill is meant to be an emergency response to the threat to Britain posed by the likes of Osama bin Laden," Oliver Letwin, the Conservatives' home affairs spokesman, said in a statement.
"But that is no reason to rush into over-hasty legislation on such a sensitive and difficult subject as religion."
Both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives say their members in the House of Lords will raise serious objections to the bill when it reaches the upper chamber for final approval. But while they could cause some delay, they would be unable to prevent it becoming law.
Under the proposals the government could invoke a clause in European law that allows parts of the European Convention on Human Rights -- to which Britain is a signatory -- to be set aside in times of public emergency.
Blunkett says the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington and their consequences amount to such an emergency.