What civil liberties do we have in the UK?

The right to a fair trial, the right to privacy, habeas corpus (the right not to be imprisoned by the state without charge or reason), freedom of speech and freedom to protest: all of these are in the famous British tradition of civil liberties, gained over centuries of hard-won reform rather than violent revolution. Documents such as Magna Carta (1215), the Great Reform Acts (1832 & 1867) and the Representation of the People Act (1918) represent important steps on the way to ‘freedom under law’ and our modern political system, a parliamentary democracy that is the envy of many other countries of the world. However, despite this strong tradition, we have no single written constitution that specifies exactly what our civil liberties are; and because of parliamentary sovereignty, which incorporates Acts of Parliament into the constitution as they are passed, our civil liberties are not fixed, but subject to change. In recent years, and particularly since the 9/11 attacks of 2001, the Labour government has passed a swathe of legislation in the name of security that has led to widespread criticism of what many see as the erosion of civil liberties in this country. The Liberal Democrats and campaign groups such as Liberty and NO2ID have been particularly vocal in their condemnation of these measures.