Terry Sarten: May jumps on the wrong bandwagon

Theresa May ... may make Terry Sarten eat his cap.

THERESA May has just given away the British election. By the time you read this, I am predicting the Tories will have lost their majority in the British Parliament by a slim margin to the Labour Party.

This will have happened for one reason - Prime Minister Theresa May's declaration earlier in the week that she was prepared to "rip up human rights laws to impose new restrictions on terror suspects" was completely at odds with the current feeling across the British Isles.

Her stance would have been regarded by many voters as a sign that the Government had surrendered to terrorism by letting fear and panic triumph over freedom.

The British PM's statement showed she regarded human rights as a tradeable commodity that could be exchanged for legislation targeting terrorism.

She misread the public mood. Following the most recent acts of terrorism in Britain, there was a groundswell of feeling that this was a test of democracy.

There was a solid determination across the nation to never let terrorism win over freedom.

Her stance would have been regarded as simply grandstanding, pseudo tough talk just prior to the election that was so transparent that even the most short-sighted voter could see right through it.

Theresa May underestimated how many people knew that those who use terror are a tiny minority. The rest of Britain and the wider world - the 99.999 per cent of us who would never act in this way - are the majority.

Giving in to the threat of terrorism by diluting human rights undermines the collective ethical and moral weight of freedom as the greatest bulwark against violent extremism.

There is much debate about how a person gravitates away from citizen to enemy.

Most terrorists are young males and the map of that journey is often signposted with acts of violence to partners and others.

It is often hard to see where the penchant for violence first collides with extreme views but it is a dangerous mix.

Identifying those with whom this mix is building towards action is difficult, requiring active police work and community knowledge.

The similarities between terrorism and domestic violence are worth considering.

Both are based in extreme views that legitimise the use of violence as a mechanism for generating fear. They share secrecy and an unpredictable flashpoint for escalation to lethal action.

This is part of the reason why identifying the threat posed by both forms of assault is so difficult.

Curtailing aspects of human rights will do nothing to assist the prevention of terrorism.

It will only serve to shift the boundaries of freedom, inhibit free speech and cast an even longer shadow that makes it harder to shine a light on potential terrorists.

The Tory Government dragged the nation into Brexit with no apparent plan for how leaving the European Union would actually work and continued their relentless austerity policies that were grinding those on low wages or unemployed into penury.

This latest challenge to the value of human rights was sure to be the end of them on election day.

If not, I will eat my cloth cap.

PS: I hope you are taking notes, Winston Peters, as you will be next.

-Terry Sarten (aka Tel) is a writer, musician and social worker - feedback welcome to: tgs@inspire.net.nz