Blair to offer limited climbdown on UK terror law

LONDON - Prime Minister Tony Blair will offer a limited climbdown over tough new British anti-terror laws on Wednesday after what amounted to a party insurrection, but will then dig his heels in, risking an even more humiliating showdown.

After a series of defeats in the unelected upper chamber of parliament on the new laws that are being rushed in to replace legislation ruled illegal late last year, Home Secretary Charles Clarke indicated he was willing to make two key compromises.

In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, Clarke said judges rather than the holder of his post would usually be responsible for ordering movement restrictions for terror suspects, and the law would have to be reviewed annually.

But he refused to concede a third key rebel and opposition demand that the level of evidence needed to hold or restrict the movement of a terror suspect be moved up several gears from suspicion to proof.

"If we have to have a higher level, it is possible that we would not be able to put control orders on some people who are, according to our understanding, a real danger to this country, " he told the newspaper in remarks published on Wednesday.

Blair wants to push the legislation through parliament by March 14, when anti-terror powers allowing indefinite detention in jail without trial of foreign terror suspects expire.

But having voted for major changes to the bill on Monday, the House of Lords demanded on Tuesday that it be scrapped altogether later in the year to start again from scratch.

The upper house voted by 297 to 110 in favour of a clause saying the law should lapse after November 30.

Clarke's offer of annual renewal is a compromise.

Critics say Blair's new plans -- involving restrictions on suspects up to house arrest -- are no better in terms of balancing civil liberties against national security.

The Lords voted overwhelmingly on Monday that all orders -- ranging from electronic tagging to curfews and curbs on freedom of association -- should go before the courts.

The government has seized upon weekend comments by ex-London police chief Sir John Stevens, who said more than 100 "Osama bin Laden-trained terrorists" are on the streets of Britain, determined to carry out mass attacks.

The stakes are high in the run up to an expected May 5 election in which security will be a significant issue.

Blair will accuse his Conservative and Liberal Democrat opponents of being soft on terrorism if they block the bill. They in turn will accuse him of trying to scrap fundamental human rights -- a founding article of faith for Blair's Labour Party.

Opposition to the bill is solid, not just in the Lords.

A revolt by 62 Labour members of parliament last week cut Blair's majority from 161 to just 14 in the elected House of Commons.

If Blair wants to stand firm, he will have to reverse the Lords amendments when the bill returns to the Commons on Wednesday -- a high-risk strategy given the close vote there last week -- and then hope the peers bow to his demands second time around, all in the space of a few days.

Otherwise a clutch of terror suspects held in jail without trial, some for almost three years, could shortly walk free.

- REUTERS