Charles Clarke: ‘The civil liberties of terrorists are a pretty low concern'

Telegraph

2 days ago

'Do I miss politics?' asks Charles Clarke. 'If it was put to me that I could become a minister – I can't envisage that, of course, at 74 – I would consider it. I believe in politics deeply.'
The former Labour home secretary has a soft, almost gentle, voice. Leaning on a table in the back garden of a small terraced house in Cambridge he seems every inch a typical grandfather, flanked by plant pots, a busy bird bath and a rose-heavy wooden trellis. It is the hottest day of the year so far and we have slipped through the narrow kitchen to sit outside in the shade. He looks the same as he did in 2005, with that wrap of white whiskers you could strike a match on, back when he was one of Tony Blair's 'big beasts' tackling crime and immigration.
Twenty years ago, Clarke was at the Home Office during the worst home-grown terrorist attack in our country's history, when four jihadist suicide bombers killed themselves and 52 other people on the London Underground and a double-decker bus. Clarke co-ordinated the response of the emergency and security services on that terrible day, taking decisions few politicians ever had to face.
'Ever since 9/11, terror had been on the agenda, and we were considering potential threats,' he says. 'It was a constant theme. But there was no particular terror threat on my desk the day before the attacks.
'At around 9am on Thursday July 7, we were sitting in the Cabinet Room for a regular meeting chaired by [deputy PM] John Prescott because the prime minister was in Gleneagles for a G8 summit.'
It was cool and overcast for July, but since it was the morning after the announcement that London had won the bid to host the 2012 Olympics, the city was glowing with a joyful – in some cases literal – hangover.
'I was handed a message saying there had been an accident on the London Underground. Then another came in two minutes later that it might be an explosion. I felt deep shock. Everyone was in shock.
'I asked John if we could postpone the Cabinet meeting so I could chair [the emergency committee] Cobra. We needed a detailed situation report. Some ministers had heard there had been eight explosions, but we found out that was because there was smoke coming out from two sides of the Tube tunnels. Andy Hayman [then assistant commissioner of the Met Police], who was the senior police officer, gave us a very accurate account of what was taking place.
'The transport secretary, Alistair Darling, and I discussed closing down the entire public transport system, but we decided not to. It would be too disruptive – plus it would be a victory for the attackers. Large parts of the Tube were already shut down.'
'We didn't know if there were bombers at large'
Three bombs detonated on London Underground trains at around 8.50am: at Aldgate and Edgware Road on the Circle line and in the deep tunnel at Russell Square on the Piccadilly line. An hour later, a fourth bomber blew up the upper deck of a number 30 bus in Tavistock Square.
'The principal question was would there be another attack. I had to authorise Operation Kratos, which was the police shoot-to-kill policy. It was not clear for several hours that these had been suicide attacks. We didn't know if there were bombers at large.
'We briefed Tony [Blair] in Scotland, but he wanted to come back to London, which is what I would have done if I'd been in his position.'
Memories of the Madrid train bombs in 2004 that killed 193 people haunted the British authorities: in Madrid the explosions were caused by bombs planted by the perpetrators, with further devices found later on the same day. In London, before it became clear that suicide bombers were responsible for the July 7 attacks, officials feared that the bombers might still be at large and preparing further attacks. Given the nature of previous attacks abroad, however, Whitehall had prepared for the worst.
'There were a set of protocols on command structures and who would take the decisions in any given circumstance. I had been involved in war gaming for such situations. The most dramatic of these was to give authorisation for a passenger plane to be shot down if it was doing what had happened on 9/11. Somebody had to decide whether to shoot down a plane if it was about to crash into the Houses of Parliament.' That individual would have been Clarke or Blair, but thankfully the decision was never needed.
Aside from the bombers, 52 people of 18 nationalities were killed and around 770 were injured.
It was the first Islamist terror attack on British soil. 'I was exhausted as we got towards the end of the day, but the adrenalin was massive. What I kept asking was, 'Have I done the best I possibly can to deal with this?' I was confident we had dealt well with what had happened, but my worry was we hadn't identified a further attack.'
Three of the jihadists, Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, and Hasib Hussain, 18, had driven down from Leeds. All were British-born with Pakistani heritage. At Luton, they met the fourth attacker, a Jamaican-born Muslim convert, Germaine Lindsay, 19. Together they took a train to King Cross, and then dispersed into London's public transport network with backpacks filled with home-made hydrogen-peroxide-based explosives.
Their identities, methods and motives were revealed in the days that followed, with videos made by Khan and Tanweer claiming they were 'soldiers' retaliating against Western action in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and elsewhere. When Tanweer declared 'this is only the beginning', he was half right.
'I've never believed in scapegoating the police'
Two weeks later, on July 21, three more jihadists attempted a second wave of attacks on the London Underground and a fourth on another bus, this time the number 26 at Haggerston. 'With each day that passed after the first attacks, it was tempting to think 'Have we avoided more?'' says Clarke. 'So when it came, it was a terrible feeling. The idea that it was coming back was a doom-laden moment.'
Incredibly, all four devices failed to detonate, and the would-be bombers went on the run. Although they were eventually caught in dramatic fashion – one police raid being broadcast live on television – the relief that London had been spared further carnage was offset by the tragic shooting of the Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes by police at Stockwell station the day after the failed bombings. He had been mis-identified as Hussain Oman, one of the failed bombers.
'What happened to Jean Charles de Menezes was horrendous, and there was very justified anger from his family. But I never felt – and I don't to this day – that the police were behaving incorrectly. Just as I never felt I was wrong to authorise the shoot-to-kill policy [used by the officers who shot Menezes], because I felt it was my duty. I could be wrong and I can be criticised for it, but I never thought we had done the wrong thing. I've never been in favour of scapegoating the police.'
That fortnight was a colossal jolt. It left no doubt in the public's mind – let alone the government's – that Islamist terror could strike at the heart of the nation. Here were small cells of impressionable young British-born men inspired by al-Qaeda and motivated by an anti-Western agenda.
In the years since, Britain has endured more Islamist violence, among others: the murder of soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich in 2013; the Westminster Bridge car attack in 2017 that killed six; the London Bridge attack the same year in which eight people were killed by knifemen in a van; the London Bridge stabbing in 2019 that cost two others their lives; and the murder of Conservative MP Sir David Amess in 2021. But for Clarke, it is the Manchester Arena attack of 2017, in which a suicide bomber killed 22 children and parents at an Ariana Grande concert, which is most emblematic of the poisonous motives behind Islamist terror.
'It was an attack on the way we in the West see our liberty,' he says. 'They want to destroy our society. I can't see any compromise with Islamic terrorism.'
Clarke's robust language as he reflects on the horrors of July 7 has a consistency lacking from some current members of his own party, as Labour struggles to cope with those on the Left who are ambivalent about whether Hamas militants are terrorists and question the British authorities' attempts to tackle extremism.
'We've all been deeply affected by July 7. It made me a harder person. [Afterwards] I was very much less tolerant of people who say, 'Give people who think like this a chance'. I don't think I'd go as far to say I have no concern for their civil liberties, but it's a pretty low concern.
'I believe respect and tolerance is very important, and attacks on that come from many directions. Anyone who tries to foment hate has to be confronted very directly. I'm still in favour of the deportation of foreign nationals who promote terrorism.'
'Politics is like a drug'
Clarke was head boy at the fee-paying Highgate School in North London, but only 'found' politics while studying mathematics and economics at Cambridge in the late 1970s. 'I was brought up to believe you could and should commit to public service,' he says.
His father, Richard Clarke, had been a permanent secretary at the Treasury between 1962-66 and originally came to London from Derbyshire, while his mother, who was also a civil servant, was from Weardale, County Durham: 'We weren't a very Labour family, but we were a public service family.'
After completing his stint as president of the Cambridge Student Union in 1977, and a year spent in Cuba for the World Youth Festival, he became a councillor in Hackney in East London. 'I was chair of housing in Hackney,' he says, which by 1981 was facing demands from central government to cap its rates. 'It was a tough time, with people living in real poverty and housing estates that had been ignored and declining.'
Following Labour's disastrous defeat in 1983, Clarke worked as a researcher and then chief of staff for its new leader, Neil Kinnock. It was during this period his belief in 'pragmatism with a purpose' began to crystallise.
'Labour came out of deep conflict in the 1980s. There was factional hatred with people who said 'Either you are with us or you are a class traitor'. In 1983 there was a real sense Labour might be finished. Just as the Conservatives face today – they must ask themselves what they stand for. My view was we should be looking to the future. We needed to speak to society as it was in the 1980s, not the 1940s. Pragmatism was seen as a terrible word.'
Clarke set up a political consultancy firm after Labour's fourth successive election defeat in 1992, but his beliefs dovetailed with that of the leadership under Blair, who took over in 1994. Clarke was unable to resist seeking his place among the wave of new MPs elected in 1997.
'Politics is like a drug. After 1992 I felt there were so many distasteful and problematic aspects to it. But within a year I started to think about finding a seat. Once you've got the bug, the idea of wanting to change society is a gripping thing.'
Even in the oppressive heat, amid the sounds of bumblebees the size of conkers hitting his garden wall, Clarke's sharpness remains impressive. Perhaps it was this that convinced Blair to promote the MP for Norwich South to minister without portfolio in 2001, and then to education secretary in 2002, and finally, at the end of 2004, to one of the great – and most challenging – offices of state.
'I never accepted that the Home Office is a poisoned chalice. There will always be the unexpected.' It was around this time that Clarke came to be seen as a 'bruiser' – and a target for opposition MPs and campaign groups who feared he posed a threat to civil liberties. The Guardian 's cartoonist, Steve Bell, drew him as a rampaging elephant.
Clarke's first task was to react to the Law Lords – before they were moved to the new Supreme Court in 2009 – striking down the counter-terror legislation of his predecessor, David Blunkett. The indefinite detention without trial of foreign terror suspects was judged to breach human rights laws at the end of 2004. Clarke set about putting 'control orders' – a range of measures to monitor suspects – in place in response.
'Immigration does not equal crime'
In the aftermath of the attacks, Clarke found himself at the centre of a debate over the government's role in protecting the public. In August 2005, the UN's special investigator on torture expressed concerns about the UK's government's intention to return radical Islamic preachers to their countries of origin. Clarke's response at the time was typical of the approach he adopted in the aftermath of the attacks. 'The human rights of those people who were blown up in London on July 7 are, to be quite frank, more important than the human rights of the people who committed those acts.'
Fast-forward to this summer, and the issues over which Clarke fought his greatest political battles feel even more pressing. Successive Tory governments have pledged to reduce net immigration and consistently failed to do so. Questions persist about Britain's ability to control its own borders and to deport foreign criminals and failed asylum seekers.
'Immigration does not equal crime,' says Clarke. 'But we should take a much harder line with countries who don't agree to accept returns, and if they don't co-operate, it should be harder for their citizens to get visas and for them to receive overseas aid.
'We need a much more aggressive stance. If those people on the boats know they will be returned to their country of origin if their asylum claim fails, then they are less likely to take that journey. The length of time it takes to process asylum cases attacks public confidence. If we had tougher agreements with countries for returns, then we could circumvent some of the delays caused by the European Convention on Human Rights. I've never been in favour of withdrawing from the ECHR, but it needs reforming.'
The focus of any home secretary's job was and remains crime and immigration. Central to these themes in 2005 was the government's desire to introduce ID cards. Clarke was an advocate of the Identity Card Act, introduced in 2006 but not ready to be implemented until 2009. It was scrapped immediately by the Cameron-led coalition, amid claims from the Left and Right alike that it was 'un-British'.
'Theresa May made a massive theatre of literally smashing up the hard disc the data was stored on in 2010, but if the scheme had been kept, we would have had a far greater grip on immigration than we do now,' Clarke says.
'If those people [coming on boats] knew they had to demonstrate their identity in order to get a job, benefits or somewhere to live, we'd be less of a target.'
Clarke says the rising popularity of Reform demonstrates the failure of the mainstream parties to grasp the extent of public discontent.
'Reform is entitled to exploit grievances – it's a legitimate tactic. If the establishment fails to make itself worthy of people's support, then it's entitled to be kicked in the a--e. Farage is a talented creator of opinion, but I don't think I've ever heard Reform articulate a clear vision of government. And I think politics is only worthy of respect when it's about putting solutions to move things forward – and Reform has not passed that test, for me, so far.'
Last week, Sir Keir Starmer marked the end of his first year in office with a humiliating climbdown over welfare reform. Clarke clearly wants to avoid joining the ranks of Labour figures criticising the Prime Minister, but says, diplomatically: 'This Labour Government has big difficulties with its communications. I think Keir Starmer has a vision, but he hasn't developed a narrative of how he hopes to put that into effect.'
Clarke is, however, conscious that the coming years might be hugely consequential for democracy as we know it. 'If people lose confidence in politicians, they will lose confidence in the whole of politics,' he says.
For someone described as a 'bruiser', Clarke is not particularly tall or broad, but his presence remains ever-so slightly intimidating. It's not hard to imagine how he earned his reputation.
He enjoys his portfolio life – he's been a visiting lecturer at Lancaster and East Anglia universities, an author, a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and a supporter of Norwich City, though he doesn't go to Carrow Road as often as he did when he was the local MP. Clarke declares himself a happy grandfather, with one son and his granddaughter in Southend, and his other son nearby in Cambridge.
In 1984 he married Carol Pearson, who he met when she was working in the House of Commons. His wife has been influential in perhaps the most important aspect of his public life since leaving Parliament: a resolve to promote the values of what we once breezily called the 'West', stiffened by the experiences of her Estonian family.
'I have deep links with Estonia. My wife's grandfather, August Maramaa, was mayor of a town called Viljandi. We have a great sense of pride in the family.'
Clarke set up a Baltics geopolitics programme at Cambridge University in 2021, and it's ever more relevant since Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine the following year, with countries once part of the Soviet Union waiting anxiously to see what Russia does next in regions it considers to be in its 'sphere of influence'.
It's not impossible to imagine Clarke returning to the political front line at a time when Britain faces domestic and overseas threats and the front benches lack figures with his eloquence and depth.
He is certainly the kind of individual you would want in a crisis, such as an attack by those who do not simply want to kill but to terrorise, as we saw 20 years ago.
'I felt proud of the resilience, warmth and positivity of people that we saw after the attacks,' he says. 'That is the strength of our country and I hate attempts to undermine it.'