by Lachlan Carmichael
LONDON - The British parliament on Friday approved Prime Minister Tony Blair's new anti-terrorism law, after compromises were struck to end a bitter two-day, round-the-clock debate.
The opposition Conservative and Liberal Democrat leaders in the unelected House of Lords said they were satisfied with moves by the Labour government to meet their concerns about the legislation.
The key compromise was the government agreeing to review the legislation in a year, and permit amendments.
Conservative leader Michael Howard said on television that the Labour Party had accepted in "all but name" the Conservative demand for a sunset clause, under which the legislation would expire in a year.
The deal ended the longest recorded session in the history of the upper house, a 31-hour debate in which the Lords kept rejecting the provisions of a bill approved by the elected House of Commons, dominated by Labour.
The debate had been particularly heated ahead of a general election expected in early May, with neither the ruling party nor the main opposition wanting to be painted as soft on national security.
The government had desperately wanted passage of the new law -- which allows restrictions including a form of house arrest to be placed on terror suspects without trial -- before existing legislation expires on Monday.
Since Thursday, a court has granted bail to nine foreign terrorism suspects who had been held in Britain without charge under the old legislation adopted after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
The law was deemed unlawful by Britain's highest court last December and the Blair government has since tried to introduce new measures, which had met fierce resistance.
Opponents had denounced the proposals as either violating human rights or being ineffective, or both.
Home Secretary Charles Clarke, the interior minister, had offered a string of concessions, such as making judges rather than politicians responsible for imposing house arrest.
On Wednesday Clarke announced the government had accepted further changes, allowing a judge to review every measure used to keep watch on terror suspects, restrict their access to communications or limit their movements.
The government also agreed to an annual review of anti-terror legislation to defuse demands for a "sunset clause" that would cause the bill to lapse on November 30, unless it is redrafted and reintroduced.
The Lords then voted to have a sunset clause take effect in a year, rather than eight months, but Labour rejected such a provision.
"We cannot accept sending out a signal as we pass this legislation that it's automatically going to self-destruct and be removed from the statute book," Blair said at a last-ditch Downing Street appeal for the bill's passage.
"That would be a mistake. It would send a signal of weakness at the very time we should be sending a signal of strength," Blair said.
However, Blair said that the government agreed to have the bill reviewed and amended if needed in a year's time.
"I think that is a perfectly sensible way through," Blair said from Downing Street.
Howard claimed Blair had made a significant climbdown. "Our bottom line has always been the sunset clause. That is what we have now been given."
Blair's government had previously indicated it might yield ground on the sunset clause but not opposition Liberal Democrat demands for a higher burden of proof needed to put restrictions on terrorist suspects.
Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy said his party would retain its objections on the burden of proof and "will return to this issue under the new timetable and procedures the government has now conceded."
The bill had been batted back and forth several times between the House of Commons and the House of Lords since Thursday morning, stunning observers and participants alike.
"I have never seen ping-pong played with such intensity between the two houses," exclaimed Lord Ivor Richard, the former Labour leader in the House of Lords.
03/11/2005 20:08 GMT