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Todays Guardian:
UK embassies draw up list of radicals

Press Association
Thursday September 8, 2005

British embassies around the world have compiled a list of up to 100 radicals who are not welcome in the UK, it emerged today.

The home secretary, Charles Clarke, revealed that overseas diplomatic and consular staff had been asked for the names of nationals and the countries in which they are based.

Following the July 7 bombings in London, Mr Clarke told parliament he would exclude people from the UK for unacceptable behaviour such as inciting and encouraging terrorism.

"What we did do was ask our missions in countries throughout the world to think whether there were any individuals who might be refused permission to come into this country - I'm talking about foreign nationals - on the grounds that their presence here was not conducive to the public good in accordance with the unacceptable behaviours that I described," he told the BBC's Newsnight.

"They have sent names, we are considering them, and they are currently on our warnings index, which means there would be a ministerial decision on any individual case."

Mr Clarke said the total number of names on the list was "in the order of 50 to 100", but stressed there were "people we are considering adding to the warnings index".

Details of the warning index emerged as ministers from the 25 EU countries began arriving in Britain for a two-day anti-terrorism summit.

Mr Clarke wants agreement to be reached on storing billions of mobile phone records showing when and where calls were made, and to whom.

He believes cross-Europe standards will help police use the records to track down terrorists and major criminals.

Some EU ministers fear such a move would infringe civil liberties, while some telecommunications companies have warned it would be too expensive for them to store such huge amounts of data.

Earlier this year, the European parliament's committee on civil liberties threw out similar plans to retain mobile phone and internet records because of "sizeable doubts on the choice of the legal basis and the proportionality of the measures".

A report by the committee pointed out that it would take police up to 100 years to analyse such huge mountains of data.

There is currently a voluntary deal in the UK for the data to be held for between six months and a year.

Today's informal summit, taking place in Newcastle, will also look at a wide range of Europe's counter-terrorist measures.

Britain, which currently holds the EU presidency, argues that it is time to "review and refresh" the way the union deals with counter-terrorism.

Mr Clarke yesterday said he wanted a rethink on the way the European convention on human rights prevented terror suspects being deported to countries in which they could face persecution, although he denied that he wanted to document re-written.

He also risked angering the British judiciary by insisting they should "respect" deals the government is currently seeking with a number of Middle Eastern and north African countries to allow deportation.

The shadow home secretary, David Davis, yesterday said he backed the telecommunications moves so long as they had proper safeguards to avoid a "European snoopers' charter".