Roger Smith’s article on anti-terror legislation hit the nail on the head (see [2009] Gazette, 25 June, 6).

The giving of wide powers to the authorities has at least one unintended result – those who designed this farrago of overkill have managed to define themselves as terrorists.

Under the Terrorism Act 2000, the definition of ‘terrorism’ includes ‘a threat or use of force designed to influence the government or to intimidate the public or a section of the public’ in the UK or any other country, so long as it is done for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause (section 1.1). However, section 1(3) then deems a use of force, or threat of force, to be terrorism if firearms or explosives are used, even if there is no proven intent to influence or intimidate. In other words, any use or threat of use of force made for a political, religious or ideological reason anywhere in the world is, according to the Terrorism Act, terrorism.

What are we then to make of the government’s assertions (after the WMD pretext for war had been proved false) that the purpose of the invasion of Iraq was regime change? Political, ideological?

And now, in Afghanistan, the oft-repeated reason for the continuing use of British troops (and, of course, firearms and explosives) is to try to establish a stable democratic system. Undoubtedly political again.

The Observer reported on 23 December 2007 that prime minister Tony Blair’s ‘rawest expression of motive’ for taking Britain into Iraq was spoken in Glasgow on the same day as the mass protest across Britain on 15 February 2003. Voice heavy with emotion, he declared: ‘If there are 500,000 on that march, that is still less than the number of people whose deaths Saddam has been responsible for. If there are one million, that is still less than the number who died in the wars he started... ridding the world of Saddam would be an act of humanity. It is leaving him there that is in truth inhumane.’ A more clearly ideological (and thus, in terms of the act, ‘terrorist’) motivation would be hard to state.

I do not expect there will be any attempt to enforce the Terrorism Act against any of these (self-defined) perpetrators of terror – further proof (if any were needed) of the accuracy of Roger Smith’s comments.

George Rosenberg, Solicitor, Nice, France