The UK's Ron Paul? Britain's True Conservative.

For those of you who do not know, today (Sunday, June 15) is the anniversary of the Magna Carta, the British document that established the tradition of Constitutional law that protects individual liberty in the western world and that serves as the legal inspiration for the U.S. Constitution. Unfortunately, not many Americans know of this document or appreciate its significance, a by-product of negligence in understanding the importance of our liberties and of maintaining our Constitutional system of government. But while our basic freedoms have been under assault in recent years, so has also been the case in my ancestral homeland, the UK.

This week, the sacred British traditions enshrined in the Magna Carta were dealt a serious blow by Parliament. The Labour Party (the UK's equivalent of the Democratic Party in the U.S.), who currently controls government under the leadership of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, introduced new legislation that would extend the detention period for terror suspects without charge to 42 days. Whereas the mere presence of detention without charge is a clear violation of Habeas Corpis, a hundred years old principle dictated by the Magna Carta, extending the period of detention to 42 days is a simply unacceptable increase in power of the state and is a serious threat to liberty. It is fundamental to the freedom of the individual that he/she must be allowed to live his/her life without coercion by anyone, as long as there is no coercion of others' life and liberty. That a person can be held without charge for a crime completely contradicts a free society and establishes the basis for tyranny. This is the initiation of a trend very damaging to the concept of a free British society. What's to say that in the future, the government won't ask for the period to be extended to 90 days, or six months, or even a year?

Unfortunately, this legislation passed on Wednesday by a very narrow margin of 9 votes. What is encouraging, though (and surprising, from the perspective of an American) is that the Conservative Party- essentially the UK's version of the Republican Party- was opposed to the legislation. The Tories (British nickname for the Conservatives) joined the Liberal Democrats (who would be best compared to the left-wing of the Democratic Party here) in fighting the legislation, while most of Labour pushed for it.

But no Tory, or for that matter any other MP, has offered such spirited opposition to the proposal and gone to such extraordinary lengths to defeat it as David Davis, a Shadow Cabinet minister, who this week resigned from Parliament in protest of the Bill's passage. Mr. Davis, who led the Conservatives' opposition to the measure, has committed to running in a by-election (when a MP resigns, a special election for the seat called a "by-election" is automatically held) from his district on the platform of protecting civil liberties. In doing so, he gave an eloquent and alarming speech laying out the specific anti-freedom actions pursued by the UK government recently- which reads quite similarly to a list of legislation enacted and being promoted in the US- and boldly initiating a new struggle for British civil liberties.

But while Mr. Davis is promoting a stance in line with his Party's, this move was truly one of political courage. For one, he resigned from one of the most power seats in the Conservative Party and, effectively, has surrendered any chance he would have at a cabinet post if, as expected, the Tories win power in the next Parliamentary election. The move, according to The Independent, is also said to have angered Tory leader David Cameron with the perception of instability in the Party that has come in the aftermath of the resignation. Cameron, who has been working hard to build momentum for the Conservative Party, who is set to become the next Prime Minister after the next Parliamentary election. All of this gives every indication that Davis is now permanently out of power and out the running to one day be leader of the Conservative Party, which would position him to one day be Prime Minister if the Conservatives hold Parliament under his leadership. This is not exactly a typical quality for a man who very recently made a strong challenge for the leadership of the Conservative Party when it last came up, which would have set him up to be the next Prime Minister of the UK.

Mr. Davis has also opened himself to great public criticism, particularly by the notoriously harsh, yet substantially influential, British media. He has been accused of making a mere self-promoting publicity stunt, the London Times calling it a "disastrous ego trip." The Sun, a right-leaning publication owned by Rupert Murdoch, accused him of "treachery to David Cameron" in a scathing attack in which they call him a "quitter" and say he has "gone stark raving mad." Even by media that has been positive to Mr. Davis, such as the Daily Telegraph. Many in the media suspect him of attempting to exploit the situation to engineer public momentum behind him to challenge for Conservative leadership, a notion he has roundly and convincingly rejected.

This historic act by David Davis solidifies him firmly as Britain's very own Ron Paul. It is an important and inspirational moment in the international movement for liberty, and this is certainly the case for America. Obviously, an act in specified defense of liberty by a politician this powerful and well-known in the cradle of modern Constitutional law of the world qualifies as such. But it is particularly important in that it re-establishes the notion that conservatism- true conservatism- has as one of its fundamental tenants the staunch defense of individual liberty from encroachment by government under any and every pretext. This is absolutely necessary in America, as "conservatism" has come more to resemble the nature of police statism that purges freedom to "promote" security, however ineffective its tactics may be in this regard. While Tory leaders like Davis, Cameron, and former Prime Minister John Major excoriate the British government's offense on civil liberties; in America, the "conservative" Bush Administration has trampled on the Bill of Rights- with the President even saying that the Constitution is "just a goddamned piece of paper"- while Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain calls the Supreme Court's rejection of suspension of Habeas Corpis in the Military Commissions Act "one of the worst decisions" in the history of the Supreme Court. A writer at the "conservative" National Review even claimed that the Court's upholding of Habeas Corpis proclaimed that the America people had "lost to radical Islam."

As Constitutional lawyer Glen Greenwald explains in this terrific piece on Friday, what the "right" of American politics currently pursues is nothing resembling conservatism, but rather authoritarianism. Basic preconditions to true conservatism are the preservation of tradition and restraint. For America, entails preserving America's tradition of as a free society rooted in individual liberty and restraint of government from encroaching on this liberty by Constitutional law. Inherent in the actions advocated by "conservative" Republicans like George W. Bush, John McCain, and most of the Republican Party wholly contradict these ideas. In order for the freedom movement to advance in America, conservatism must once again be identified in its true context. Self-identified libertarians (sadly, since I am one) simply do not amount to a large enough number at this point to ensure victory; and Democrats, who voted in overwhelming majority to institute the Patriot Act and the Real ID clearly cannot be trusted completely, if at all, to faithfully carry forth this agenda. The American Right must once again reacquaint itself with its purpose in order to have the numbers and momentum to prevail. In a sense, we who seek to preserve and promote individual liberty- be we of the left, right, or the libertarian column- are all true conservatives.