Plans to control the movements of suspected jihadists seeking to return to the UK after fighting abroad will go ahead, David Cameron said today.
The promise sets the prime minister on a collision course with his Liberal Democrat coalition partners, who voiced reservations about so-called relocation orders when they were announced on Monday.
Nick Clegg sat impassive as Mr Cameron pledged to push new measures through as quickly as possible, at a Prime Minister’s Questions dominated by yesterday’s murder of a second US journalist at the hands of jihadis in Syria.
Relocation orders allow security officials to forcibly move a suspect away from a specified area.
“I can confirm [relocation orders] will go ahead and it is going to require legislation,” said Mr Cameron.
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“The key is I think to put the desires and advice of David Anderson, who is the independent reviewer of terrorism, to put those into action. What he’s spoken about is some combination of exclusion and relocation and it is that that needs to be introduced into the Terrorism Prevention and Investigatory Measures.
“I think we should try to do this on a cross-party basis to send the clearest possible message, and I think that urgency is the order of the day.”
Mr Cameron also dismissed concerns voiced by politicians of all parties, including the former Tory attorney general Dominic Grieve, that plans to ban jihadis from re-entering Britain could be illegal.
He said: “I do believe it is legally permissible, but it is going to take some work for this reason.
“We already have the power when people are trying to return to the UK. If it is a foreign national, we can exclude them - even if they have lived in this country for any number of years.
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“If it’s a dual national, you can strip them of their British citizenship and exclude them from the country. If it is a naturalised citizen, you can, under our new laws passed recently through this House, you can strip them of their British nationality.
“But I do believe there is a gap where you have someone born and raised and a British citizen - rather like the individual we discussed on Monday from High Wycombe, saying he wanted to return and do harm to our country.
“Of course, the best thing to do is gather evidence, prosecute, convict and imprison - but I do think there may be occasions where we need to exclude, so therefore we should fill that gap in our armoury. I believe it is legal and possible to do it.”
Powers to exclude some suspected returning terrorists and to force others to relocate away from home, and away from their network of Islamist friends and mentors, were included in measures the Prime Minister announced on Monday.
Conservative aides briefed that the coalition had reached agreement in principle on this point, but within hours the Lib Dems had rejected this claim.
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The regional restrictions had been a key part of Labour’s stricter control order regime, scrapped when the coalition came into office in 2010.
Mr Cameron also said on Monday that he wanted to look at “specific and discretionary” powers to bar suspects from returning to the UK, but conceded in the Commons this would only proceed if there were cross party agreement.
Hundreds of young Britons have left home to fight for Islamist causes abroad - among them the jihadi with a London accent nicknamed “Jihadi John”, who features as the apparent murderer in videos showing the killings of journalists US James Foley and Steven Sotloff.
At the end of the second video, released last night, a British hostage held by the Isis terror group is exhibited kneeling in an orange jumpsuit, with the threat that he will be the next to die if Britain joins America in airstrikes against Isis.
Sotloff’s killer is heard warning “governments that enter this evil alliance of America . . . to back off and leave our people alone.”
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Despite the Prime Minister’s statement today, a Liberal Democrat spokesman insisted that both the exclusion measures and Tpims changes remained “under discussion”.
On the exclusion idea, the spokesman said: “This issue remains under discussion in government and we have always said that we would be prepared to sign up to something that was both legal and practical.
“This is a very legally complicated issue and needs to be examined very closely.”
On relocation powers, the spokesman added: “The issue of introducing relocation powers remains under discussion in government. We have agreed to look in detail at the options available to us.
“The Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, David Anderson, whose views we respect, recently recommended that the Government look at locational constraints that can be put on Tpims suspects to make it easier to disrupt their networks and to reduce the risk of absconding.
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“As a result, the Liberal Democrats are willing to look in more detail at options, including at whether the use of exclusion zones under the existing legislation could be expanded to meet the concerns that Anderson raises.”