‘BLAIR should go’, said former Labour minister Glenda Jackson yesterday after a rebellion by 49 Labour MPs saw the government defeated by 322-291 votes in its bid to give the police powers to hold people for 90 days without charge.
Jackson said: ‘I regard it as a victory for common sense.
‘The government has hidden behind the police requesting this 90 days but they’ve partly failed to give the evidence that made 90 days really productive.
‘The House of Commons can be really proud of itself.’
Jackson added that had prime minister Blair ‘left it to the home secretary’ there may have been less of a rebellion, and that Blair ‘should step aside’.
She added: ‘There is a marked lack of trust in the country over issues like terror and the Iraq war.’
Former Labour health secretary, Holborn and St Pancras MP Frank Dobson said: ‘I’m glad the vote went this way.
‘A lot of my constituents were among the emergency workers who dragged people out from the July 7th bombings.
‘Some may agree with me some may not. But you’ve got to do what’s right to defend our constitutional rights.
‘We demand of a lot of countries that they don’t lock people up without charge and have democracy.
How can we do that if we pass such measures ourselves?
‘Supposing you were held for three whole months without charge, and messed about. You are going to be more inclined to be against the system and for the terrorist.’
SNP leader Alex Salmond said after the vote: ‘This is the day that Blair has fallen off the high wire.
‘The crucial thing was when he undercut his own home secretary, who was looking for a compromise as recently as Monday.
‘But he was undercut by his prime minister who wanted to take it right to the wire and he’s been undone by his own arrogance.
‘It was going to happen sooner or later and now it’s happened in spectacular fashion.
‘After the vote somehow the prime minister seemed to shrink in size, just like his shrinking authority.’
MPs voted for an amendment from Labour MP David Winnick by 323 to 290 votes for a period of 28 days.
Winnick said a balance needed to be struck between traditional liberties, rule of law and trying to protect this country from acts of terror.
He stressed: ‘The right not to be imprisoned without being charged, not to be subject to arbitrary arrest and habeas corpus are all basic to our democracy.’
MPs had been put under enormous pressure by Chief Constables and in at least one case by the head of Special Branch, who telephoned MPs before the debate, asking them to vote for 90 days detention without charge.
At prime minister’s question time which immediately preceded the debate, Blair had had to fend off cries of ‘police state’, when he proceeded again to make the case for the police, citing Met Commissioner Blair, the Chief Constable of Manchester and Met Terror Squad chief, Andy Hayman.