Peter Hain, currently Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, has been commenting on proposals to give police the 'automatic right to stop and question anyone in the UK about suspected terrorism'. A refusal to co-operate could lead to a fine of up to £5000, and would presumably also be an arrestable offence (as all offences now are, under this government's laws). As an arrestable offence it could also be used to trigger a DNA sampling and addition to the national DNA database.
We can assume that Mr Hain will have been well briefed about 'stop and search' before he took up his NI Secretary role, as 36 years ago the Stormont government introduced internment there after discussions with UK Prime Minister Edward Heath:
The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Brian Faulkner, has introduced
a new law giving the authorities the power to indefinitely detain
suspected terrorists without trial." Source: BBC "On This Day" site
Mr Hain expressed concern that the introduction of such powers could alienate sections of the community and encourage terrorism. His expressions of concern were somewhat undermined by a strange lapse in time-perception:
"We've got to be very careful that we don't create the
domestic equivalent of Guantanamo Bay, which was an international abuse
of human rights, acted as a recruiting sergeant for dissidents and
alienated Muslims and many other people across the world."
I can't understand why he uses the past tense.
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