Labour leadership contender Yvette Cooper has issued a mea culpa over the last Labour government’s attitude towards civil liberties, saying it did not do enough to keep the state’s surveillance powers in check. In the latest sign of candidates trying to draw a line under the past, the shadow home secretary criticised the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown for being “too reluctant to introduce checks and balances as strong as new terrorism powers”.

Both the Labour and Conservative parties also ignored the inadequacy of laws governing interception of communications – the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) – for too long, she added.

Cooper told the Guardian that better protection of civil liberties would become a policy if she is elected as Labour’s leader next month. She said she would make it a priority to “break up concentrations of power” and launch a review of privacy in relation to private sector companies that hold a huge amount of personal data.

“With growing extremism and radicalisation, strong powers are needed to tackle terrorism, but they always need to be balanced with strong checks and balances on state power. Too often they aren’t,” she said. “The introduction of new powers should always be proportionate and follow the evidence – neither of which was true of Labour’s attempt to bring in 90-day and 42-day pre-charge detention.”

Her other plans to safeguard liberty include judicial authorisation for interception warrants and communications data warrants, extra safeguards over passport seizures, and replacing a raft of surveillance watchdogs with a single intelligence commissioner. She would also like to introduce a “suspicion threshold” for the exercise of some schedule 7 detention powers, which were used to hold David Miranda, the partner of journalist Glenn Greenwald, at Heathrow shortly after the Edward Snowden revelations about mass surveillance.

Snowden’s revelation about the power of the security services to collect personal data in bulk from the internet sparked a number of inquiries about the remit of Britain’s spying agencies.

The government has promised to overhaul Ripa after a report by David Anderson, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, called for “a clean slate” approach on surveillance and interception by GCHQ and other intelligence agencies. However, Downing Street has indicated it is probably not in favour of handing power over interception warrants from ministers to judges, which was recommended by Anderson and is supported by Cooper.



A battle is now looming over privacy as Theresa May, the home secretary, is planning to launch a new attempt to give the intelligence agencies and police more access to communications data on the internet – a move previously blocked by the Liberal Democrats.

Labour has not yet said how it will vote on this but Cooper has indicated she agrees with the need for stronger surveillance laws as long as there are significantly beefed-up safeguards.



In a speech on the issue last year, she said she was in “no doubt that the police and the intelligence and security agencies need to continue to be able to use intercept or communications data in the right circumstances to solve crimes or prevent national security threats”. A draft surveillance bill is expected in the autumn and legislation before the end of 2016.

Cooper’s assertion that Labour could have been stronger on civil liberties comes after a series of statements from the candidates that distance themselves from the stances of the Blair and Brown era.

In another admission of past Labour failings, Burnham has published the findings of a study by fellow Labour MP Dan Jarvis, who said the party has been in denial for too long about the challenges posed by Ukip. Jarvis says that Labour “tried to shrug it off as a threat only to the Tories” and “talked about taking on Farage, but in reality we were more comfortable picking fights with Nick Clegg.”

In response, Burnham said: “Dan’s findings make tough reading, but it’s vital that Labour pays attention. We’ve got to show these voters that we can make their lives better with big, bold policy ideas – on pay, jobs and housing. We’ve got to win back their trust on the economy and immigration and truly listen to their concerns.”

Jeremy Corbyn, the frontrunner, has pledged to apologise on behalf of Labour for the Iraq war. Subsequently, Cooper and Andy Burnham suggested they could do the same after the publication of the Chilcot inquiry report. Corbyn has also said Labour made a mess by saddling the NHS with private finance initiative (PFI) debts and laid into his own party’s economic record for failing to do enough to address inequality and protect growth.

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Burnham and Liz Kendall have both argued that Labour made mistakes on the economy by not preparing enough for bad times. This is a clear contrast with Cooper, who has mounted a staunch defence of the Brown government’s financial management during the 2008-9 crash.

Burnham, Cooper and Kendall have all argued that Labour underestimated the strength of public feeling about immigration, while Burnham has said the party gave the perception that it was offering an “easy ride” for people on benefits.

Soon after the contest was launched, Cooper, Burnham and Kendall also distanced themselves from the leadership of Ed Miliband on the issue of business. Cooper said Labour must “reset” its relationship with the corporate world, arguing Miliband’s rhetoric of “predators and producers” had been mistaken. Meanwhile, Burnham said the party had failed to “celebrate the spirit of enterprise”.