Editorial: UK Government use of anti-terrorism act to seize Icelandic assets

A couple of days ago Gordon Brown was preaching that the market needed to set its course by ‘moral values’ – that the ‘good’ economy would help to build the ‘good’ society. Today the UK seized the assets of Icelandic banks in this country by using anti-terrorist legislation. Moral values? No – the values of the market. Take what you can how you can.

The action also smacks of the bully and is all the more distasteful for that. Our own banking practices were those of the unregulated and reckless gambler and we weren’t alone. There is no basis for self-righteousness on the part of the UK in defending this action against Iceland. Have we forgotten Northern Rock? Have we not stopped to think about HBOS’s mad level of exposure to some of the most toxic mortgages in the market – the so called ‘Alternate As’? (We reported on that situation earlier.)

As a bigger and better resourced country we had the means to attempt a rescue that Iceland could never contemplate. Our financial practice was not more moral in its values than theirs has been.

Using anti-terrorist law to seize the Icelandic assets is indefensible in any terms other than pragmatism and force majeure. It makes Gordon Brown no different and no better than Tony Blair. It chimes perfectly with the use of that same suite of legislation, enthusiastically enacted by David Blunkett and used, not against terrorists but against ordinary British citizens engaged in obviously peaceful protest. (We have reported on that too, in an editorial on the possibility – leaked to test the water – that Gordon Brown will return yet another disgraced former minister to government. Unless the ‘water’ looks sufficiently turbulent, David Blunkett will most probably be given the responsibility of running the Labour party’s next General Election campaign.)

The financial crisis would now appear to have been compounded by a moral crisis – in Gordon Brown’s own terms and of his making.

(See our previous report on Gordon Brown’s parallel plan to sue Iceland. His education must have missed out on the connection between blood and stone.)