Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2008

My Lords, it is not on every occasion on which I have followed the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, in debates in this House that I have been able to say that I agree with every word that he said, but on this occasion I can say it without any reservation. I am grateful that my noble friend intervened as one who can judge the matter a little more objectively than some of us, because he has not been involved in all the debates. This may be technically a debate, but there is really no question for the House to decide. The Government have brought the order before us because they had no alternative; Section 5 of the Terrorism Act 2000 said that they must. Had the Government listened to some of us before the unseemly saga began, the Secretary of State could have come before us tonight with a good grace and claimed the credit. My noble friend on the Front Bench would not have had the task of making the speech that he did; if I may say so, it was hardly a gracious retraction on the part of the Government. The Government have suffered a humiliating defeat in the courts. Their attitude has been labelled as perverse. The unhappy story is not yet over, as, already, two noble Lords have pointed out. The PMOI is the subject of a decision by the Council of the European Union to include it in the European list of terrorist organisations, so that its assets in the EU territories are frozen and so that Europe sends out a signal that the PMOI is perceived as a terrorist organisation. It is no secret that that was done at the instance of the United Kingdom Government, as my noble friend has said. A ruling by the EU Court of First Instance that it is wrongly included has been evaded by what can be described only as a shameful piece of sophistry. I believe that the conclusions reached by all three of the distinguished courts will be vindicated by the verdict of history. It is perverse that those who so courageously opposed a regime, which is the very centre and source of a web of terrorism and has been condemned by United Nations’ human rights bodies on more than 54 occasions, and whose families in Iran are suffering persecution for their resistance to terrorism, should ever have been labelled as terrorists. It is not too late to rectify the injustice or to congratulate the PMOI and the National Council of Resistance on their complete vindication. This is not the end of the ordeal suffered by the Iranian people at the hands of the mullahs, but I believe that it is the beginning of the end and that the people of Iran may look forward at no great distance to the dawn of a new freedom and the restoration of their country to its rightful place in the international community.