ABSTRACT
Dates, events and anniversaries seem to loom large in reviews of anti-terrorism laws. For many scholars, the history of anti-terrorism laws (or at least their interest in them) commenced on 11 September 2001, the day that ‘changed everything’ (Cheney, 2003). However, for the United Kingdom, turning points in legal regimes can be located in both more distant and more recent events, all still marked by commemorations. In the past, signal events might include: the Omagh Bombing of 15 August 1998, the brutal message that the Good Friday Peace Agreement in Northern Ireland did not command universal acclaim amongst Republicans. Further back are tragic attacks such as the Lockerbie air disaster of 21 December 1988 (HM Advocate v. Al Megrahi, 2002 and 2008) and the Birmingham pub bombings of 1974, which not only sparked into life a new legal regime of anti-terrorism laws but also, through the miscarriages of justice which followed, shook the criminal justice system and prompted major revisions (Walker and Starmer, 1999). UK anti-terrorism laws can readily be excavated back to more ancient times (Walker, 2004), through a stratum of colonial regulations ending with rebels becoming statesmen and laws of Irish suppression and coercion over two or more centuries, including the infamous or glorious date of 24 April 1916 (the proclamation of the Irish Republic in Dublin). With such deep attendant controversy over the meanings of such events and the propriety of the anti-terrorism laws in response, it may be safer for the purposes of this chapter to remain in contemporary times and look forward from 11 September to include later significant dates, such as 7 July 2005, the London transport bombings which killed 52 civilians and four ‘home-grown’ extremists, who had been inspired by the violent ideology of Al-Qaeda (Home Office, 2006; Intelligence and Security Committee, 2006). The then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, issued a stark warning on 5 August 2005: ‘Let no one be in any doubt, the rules of the game are changing’ (Blair, 2005). In reality, the history of anti-terrorism laws has long been fluid and without a definite finish line, and Blair was no more able to master the tides of history than King Canute.
