Elsewhere, there are calls for the TUC to prioritise its campaigning work on pensions – a reflection of the number of workers” pensions hit by falling stock markets and the closure of company pension schemes to new members.

By far the most controversial proposal comes early on. In a move likely to alarm companies and the government, the Transport and General Workers’ Union calls for workers to be able to take part in secondary action – the right to walk out in sympathy with strikes in unrelated industries.

The Employment Relations Act comes under particular scrutiny. The RMT says that: “following six years of a Labour government the lack of progress in repealing anti-trade union legislation and supporting employment rights is completely unacceptable.” There are calls to reject any move to make arbitration in trade disputes compulsory, and for unions to be able to represent members irrespective of numbers at a workplace.

As always, the TUC agenda displays union worries over job losses in manufacturing. It includes calls for the appointment of a minister for manufacturing, the introduction of a 35-hour week, the implementation of European legislation on workers” rights to bring about a “level playing field in Europe,” and the revising of the remit of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee to take greater account of the manufacturing sector in setting interest rates.

Companies operating in the UK’s privatized sectors, including the rail and energy industry, are criticized for showing “little or no regard for the public interest.” The heads of such companies are slammed for receiving “large rewards that are wholly unjustified by their stewardship.”

In a sign that is likely to please global justice campaigners, there is evidence that trade unionists are becoming aware of the implications that the General Agreement on Trade in Services, currently under negotiation at the WTO, is likely to have on domestic jobs. UNISON shows its opposition to the “government’s policy of increased competition and private sector involvement in the delivery of public services,” and agrees with the critics of GATS that it will threaten UK services “by exposing them to world-wide competition.”

As has become routine in recent years, there is opposition to the government’s PFI policy, including calls for the strengthening of workforce protection and introduction of fair wages clauses.

Foundation hospitals are roundly attacked by UNISON and the TGWU, including criticism for the lack of consultation over this key government reform, and concern that Foundation Hospital Trusts will create a two-tier NHS where “elitism and excellence for the few replaces universal provision and excellence for all.”

The argument that Foundations Trusts will democratize the NHS is dismissed. They will instead “undermine democracy and accountability by ensuring a greater role for the private sector and by shifting responsibility for [Foundation Hospitals] from the Secretary of State to an unaccountable regulator.”

There is alarm at signs in this year’s Budget that pay remits for public sector workers are to include a stronger local and regional dimension. The Public and Commercial Services Union opposes moves towards “unjustified” regional pay, and calls for the maintenance of national pay rates and national pay bargaining for public sector workers.

The government is given a range of ideas for legislation to deal with the pensions crisis. Among the proposals floated in the TUC agenda are minimum compulsory employer contributions to workers’ pension schemes, and employer pension insurance to ensure scheme members are not deprived of benefits by failing discontinued schemes.

The Association of Teachers and Lecturers condemns the government’s proposal in a Green Paper to raise the public sector pension age from 60 to 65. There are also calls to re-introduce compulsory saving for retirement as “the only way of guaranteeing adequate levels of pension in the future.”

The main government minister who will be taking on delegates at the conference will be Chancellor Gordon Brown. However, he is unlikely to be the only figure preparing himself for a hostile reception. Digby Jones, director general of the Confederation of British Industry, will also be speaking at the TUC. He launched a pre-emptive strike, telling the BBC Today programme: “I wish trade unions would fight today’s and tomorrow’s battles and not yesterday’s.”

“It’s a real shame that the attitude seems to be “no, no, can’t, shan’t”, instead of saying “how can we improve skills and literacy and how are we going to stop jobs leaving the country?”"

The presence of Digby Jones in Brighton will be only the third time that a CBI director has spoken at the TUC annual conference. His intervention is reflective of worries in government and industry at the new generation of more militant union leaders.

The “awkward squad”, or “New Left Majority” as they prefer to be known, have openly called for a review of political funding of the Labour Party by the union movement. Union leaders such as Billy Hayes of the CWU and Bob Crow of the RMT were also strident critics of the government’s invasion of Iraq at anti-war meetings.

Recent IMF research puts a refined analysis of projected growth and export earnings at the centre of proposals for calculating the debt sustainability of low-income countries. By analyzing such factors, the IMF reasons, the capacity of poor countries to use their revenues to pay back new and existing debts can be calculated.

Development NGOs are appalled at the IMF’s persistence in putting forward this sort of creditor-focused approach. Christian Aid noted: “The IMF defines debt sustainability as a country’s ‘capacity’ to repay. This capacity would be based on projected growth and export earnings. What many NGOs have been calling for is for debt service to be based on a country’s ‘ability’ to pay – having already taken into account their vast investment needs – in education, transport, water and health.”

The IMF’s position has particularly riled NGOs because of its stated commitment that future strategies for dealing with debt have to help poor countries reach internationally agreed targets on poverty and welfare – the so-called Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Jubilee Research said: “The only true way to define debt sustainability is to base it on the analysis of a country’s ability to meet the MDGs. Only when a country has sufficient resources to reduce poverty through spending on health, education, water and so on, should they then start repaying their creditors.”

Christian Aid commented: “As the IMF’s understanding of debt sustainability doesn’t incorporate poverty and development variables, it is difficult to see how this links back to, or indeed supports, the MDGs.

Being at odds with the IMF is nothing new for NGOs. Nevertheless, how the IMF formulates a new strategy on debt sustainability is seen as particularly crucial.

Because the IMF is looking at debt sustainability as a whole – both new and existing debts -any new strategy will determine how the IMF, together with the World Bank, deals with new loans and grants to poor countries in the future.

And new finance for low-income countries is essential. There is general recognition now that even if an immediate and total cancellation of poor countries’ debt took place, as demanded by the Jubilee 2000 campaign, many countries would still need substantial new external financing if they were to have any hope of meeting goals on poverty reduction.

NGOs have responded to the situation by arguing for a reformed debt cancellation programme that matches the amount of debt reduction countries need with the finance they need to meet the MDGs.

Where total debt cancellation is not enough and new money is needed, CAFOD has called for a “new aid financing structure that is big enough, flexible and efficient enough to put all debtor and low-income countries’ finances on a path aimed at reaching the MDGs by the year 2015.”

Jubilee Research says that any new borrowing should be strictly controlled, and should not take place if it is likely to lead to substantially increased debt burdens in future, over around 5-10% of revenues. “Given the lack of availability of grants, some borrowing will still be necessary. If this is the case, donors should provide countries with grants rather than loans in order to help them to meet the MDGs,” the organisation said.

Despite the strength of opinion, the vocal demands of the NGOs may fall on deaf ears. In its May research paper, “Debt Sustainability in Low Income Countries – Towards a Forward Looking Strategy,” the IMF dismissed calls for debt cancellation and the kind of “poverty-first” approach to debt sustainability espoused by NGOs.

In the paper, the IMF argued that the country-by-country judgment required for debt relief and new grants would be logistically difficult and potentially unfair. It also says that limiting debt repayments to marginal amounts would obstruct the “evolution of a credit culture.” And most contentiously of all, it says that without firm commitments from donor countries to come up with the money, emphasizing debt cancellation in an approach to debt sustainability is counter-productive.

It is this sort of attitude that has helped to bring a more political edge to the positions of many NGOs in recent years. CAFOD commented: “Annual global military expenditure has reached US$650 billion, and subsidies to rich producers in OECD countries are in the region of US$350 billion. Global aid budgets are creeping back up again after years of decline, but are still in the region of US$50-60 billion. So this is not a question of lack of money. It is a question of a lack of political will.”

The IMFs paper on debt sustainability is available on its website. NGOs and civil society groups have until the end of September to respond.

Figures released by the government last week showed the number of asylum applications in the UK falling to 3,610 in June 2003. David Blunkett commented: “These figures show that the tough measures the government has put in place to prevent illegal immigration and tackle abuse of the asylum system are working. We now have half as many claims as we did nearly a year ago.”

“The changing situation in Afghanistan, Iraq and Sri Lanka has also played a part and this is reflected elsewhere in Europe. But claims have fallen more than twice as much in the UK than elsewhere in Europe because of our tough measures.”

However, UN figures released yesterday showing drops in the number asylum seekers across the industrialised west in the second quarter of this year undermined the Home Secretary’s claim that government policy had cut the number of applications in the UK.

The UN reported that in addition to a 34% quarterly decrease in the UK, other European countries also saw significant reductions, including drops of 31% in Spain and Ireland, a 24% drop in Germany, and a reduction of 22% in Sweden.

The humiliation for David Blunkett follows attacks on the government by commentators angered at the victorious tone the Home Office adopted in announcing the drop in asylum applications and the emphasis it placed on the on the figures.

Commentators have attempted to throw a spotlight on the plight of those seeking asylum, and have accused the government of ignoring the needs of refugees fleeing war and human rights abuses.

The Refugee Council has pointed out that the main countries of origin for asylum applicants, according to the Home Office figures, are Somalia, Zimbabwe and China, all of which have poor human rights records.

Maeve Sherlock said: “Simply preventing people from entering the UK cannot be referred to as a success when some of those people may be in desperate need of our help.”

The Refugee Council is also concerned that government action may be deterring individuals from applying for asylum once in the country.

Sherlock commented: “Forcing asylum seekers who do manage to get here into homelessness and destitution has a negligible effect on numbers and is frankly inhumane.

“If the government wishes to see a long term, sustainable reduction in numbers it must take into account and address the root causes of forced migration and accept that driving asylum seekers out on to the streets helps no-one”.

The Refugee Council was joined by the Institute for Public Policy Research, a think-tank known for its close links to New Labour, which also chose to speak out against the government’s asylum policy.

IPPR said that people fleeing war and human rights abuses are being prevented from reaching the UK by tough asylum policies that have been introduced this year. It also said that measures intended to deter economic migrants were excluding those in need of protection.

Dr Heaven Crawley commented: “The Home Office has introduced a range of measures which it believes will deter and prevent economic migrants from using the asylum system to avoid UK immigration controls. At the same time it has pledged to provide protection to those genuinely in need.

“If the measures had been successful in meeting both these objectives, we would expect to see the number of those granted refugee status increase proportionately. The fact that we have not suggests that the measures fail to differentiate between those who are genuinely in need of protection and those who are not.”

She continued: “The reduction in the number of applications has been achieved principally by making it difficult for everyone, regardless of their circumstances, to get into the UK.”

It also emerged earlier this week that the UN’s high commissioner for refugees had written to the lord chancellor, Lord Falconer, criticising the government for plans to cut publicly funded legal advice to asylum seekers making their case to immigration officers from 100 hours to a maximum of five hours.

The UN warned that the proposal to limit the availability of legal advice will harm deserving and vulnerable asylum seekers who have to navigate an unfamiliar legal system, often with poor English language skills.

The government’s concern with being able to show it has reduced the number of asylum applications in the UK comes after concerted campaigns by national newspapers, such as the Daily Express and The Sun, to pressure the government on the issue.

The Home Office figures released last week showed that the number of asylum applicants fell to 3,610 in June 2003, apparently putting the government on track to meet its target to halve the 8,770 applications in October 2002. In addition, the new figures showed a 20% increase in the number of forced removals of asylum applicants.

The Home Office claimed that radical reforms in the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 had contributed to the reduction in asylum applications.

These measures included a list of designated safe countries to which refused applicants can be removed quickly with no right of appeal in the UK, restricting access to benefits for those who do not claim as soon as reasonably practicable, and a new shared EU database of fingerprints that can reveal if someone has already claimed asylum in another EU country.

The report by the TUC heralds the fact that a DTI study by an independent US academic actually echoes two main campaigning issues for British trade unions: deregulated British industry, and companies that seek to compete by using cheap labour and under-investing in skills.

In particular, the TUC report says the DTI study “flatly contradicts” the ‘red tape’ campaigns of the UK’s business lobby. It quotes from the study saying that far from being over-regulated and over-taxed, British businesses benefit from the “lowest level of product and labour market regulations” among leading industrial countries.

Elsewhere, the TUC agrees with the Harvard academic’s conclusions that British industry places too much emphasis on cutting costs and lowering wages in order to stay competitive. The TUC report says: “British businesses are, for the most part, stuck in a “low road” rut – competing on price not innovation, and characterised by low investment in physical and human capital.”

Brendan Barber, TUC General Secretary, summed up the report saying: “The UK cannot compete for much longer with a strategy of building cheap things cheaper. The government are going to have to get on with the job while business remains pre-occupied with whinging about imaginary ‘red-tape’.”

The report by the TUC comes less than a month before its main annual conference in Brighton on 8-11 September 2003. Commentators are predicting a stormy conference with the new generation of “awkward squad” trade union leaders expected to use the conference to criticise the government’s industrial policies and changes to the public sector.

Although UK competitiveness and the government’s industrial policy has remained a key concern for the TUC, the implications of economic competition between countries has been questioned in recent years by campaigners on the left concerned with the nature of globalisation and neo-liberal economic policies. Some critics believe increased economic globalisation has caused a “race-to-the-bottom” in labour rights and taxation levels as western countries attempt to minimise the costs of engaging in business within their borders.

One NGO, the International Simultaneous Policy Organisation, is entirely focussed on promoting uniform minimum social and labour standards among competing nations. Its Director, John Bunzl, has said: “The principal barrier to implementation of any significant measure to improve today’s environmental, economic or social problems is destructive competition. Global de-regulated capital flows and corporations know no national boundaries and by their ability or threat to move elsewhere, force nations to compete with one another for capital, jobs and ever-scarcer natural resources.

“Policies that seek to address environmental or social problems requiring higher public spending or higher costs for industry are precluded on the grounds of uncompetitiveness, adverse market reaction and the threat of job losses.”

This is the first time that a think-tank with strong ties to the government has advocated such a policy, which has previously been supported by more radical environmentalists.

Although recognising that Kyoto is an “important first step”, the research published in the IPPR journal New Economy says that Kyoto only delivers a marginal cut in emissions from industrial nations while total global emissions will increase by 70%.

Tony Grayling of IPPR said: “Kyoto will not stop climate change. The next international climate change negotiations must agree on a safe level of emissions in the long term and fair shares between nations. In practice, this should mean contraction of global emissions and convergence towards equal per capita emissions rights.”

The contraction-and-convergence policy was first put forward by the Global Commons Institute in the early 1990s. It requires an agreed international limit on greenhouse gas emissions that would avert the worst consequences of climate change, calculated on a global per capita basis. Countries would then work towards a convergence of their annual per capita emissions.

Grayling argued that the contraction-and-convergence approach to cutting emissions had a better chance of support from America, Australia and developing countries that have not signed up to the Kyoto Protocol.

Although environmentalists have discussed the contraction-and-convergence policy for a number of years, commentators were quick to hail its promotion by IPPR as significant, given the think-tank’s close links to New Labour.

Professor John Whitelegg of the Green Party said: “IPPR’s new statement isn”t hugely significant in itself. The Greens pointed out when the Kyoto Protocol was first agreed that although it provided a useful framework it would achieve nothing if it didn’t set meaningful targets.”

Whitelegg nevertheless conceded the IPPR statement was “something of a milestone, because the IPPR often serves to help draw the government’s attention to views that others have been advocating for some time. ”

A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs told Red Pepper that the government still sees the Kyoto mechanism as the only international method that will deliver greenhouse gas emission reductions. The spokesperson said: “It is an essential tool in combating climate change. Any other policies which might well work will have to come on top of Kyoto.”

The spokesperson pointed out that unlike the Kyoto protocol, the contraction-and-convergence policy had not been internationally agreed, and said it was unlikely that it could be easily agreed with other countries.

The intervention by IPPR in the Kyoto debate was not applauded by all quarters of the environmental lobby however. Roger Higman, Senior Climate Campaigner at Friends of the Earth told Red Pepper: “It is extremely dangerous to say [Kyoto] is flawed. It is a first step, but it is not perfect. The most important thing is that Kyoto is ratified.”

“It has taken 13 years to come up with an agreement. A replacement would only start from where we are now. That is 13 years of pollution and nothing will be done to stop it.”

Higman said Friends of the Earth broadly supported the contraction-and-convergence model and believed that emission allocations for different countries should be reflective of different population levels. However, he said the “most important thing to stress to people is that Kyoto must be ratified and then we can move beyond it.”

The Kyoto Protocol was agreed by 180 countries in December 1997. Under the Protocol, the international community agreed to begin cutting emissions of greenhouse gases by using renewable energy schemes, increasing energy efficiency and developing technologies that do not emit CO2. Industrialised countries accepted targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions to an average of 5 per cent below their 1990 levels, by 2010, as a first step.

However, President George Bush unilaterally withdrew the USA from the Kyoto Protocol in 2001, arguing that the American economy would be undermined, and that it was unfair that developing nations such as China and India were not making cuts.

The mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol requires Russia, the second biggest CO2 polluter after the USA, to ratify the Protocol for it to come into force. Environmentalists around the world are nervously waiting to see if Russian President Vladimir Putin will make the necessary commitment to the Protocol. Without Russian support, the entire agreement is likely to fall apart.

The Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE) notes that although farmers who have grown GM oilseed rape as part of government trials are banned from planting conventional rape seed in those fields for two years, contamination will be impossible to control even after this time and is likely to breach legal limits.

The committee notes: “Preliminary results from new research [has] shown that up to 5% of the crop which emerges could be GM contaminated, thus making it potentially unlawful to market the crop.”

British law does not allow the sale of GM oilseed rape, and EU laws only allow up to 0.5% GM contamination from an unlicensed crop in food sold to the public.

The ACRE committee proposed that farmers who have taken part in GM trials should not grow conventional oilseed rape until more is known about the risk of contamination.

Pete Riley of Friends of the Earth, who opposed the GM crop trials, said: “This news highlights the threat GM crops pose to our food, farming and environment. The Government must not allow GM crops to be commercially grown in the UK.

“The Government must take steps to ensure that all farmers that have grown GM oil seed rape, and not just the ones that have taken part in the farm scale trials, are banned from planting rape in these heavily polluted fields.”

Following the comments by the ACRE scientists, the government announced on Friday 25 July that farmers will not be allowed to plant conventional rape this autumn in fields that were used for trials of GM oilseed rape. The government said this was to “minimise any commercial consequence to [farmers] from GM plants accidentally growing from seeds left in the ground mixing with conventional plants.”

The risk of contamination by GM crops has been a key issue in the debate over GM foods. In 2001, the EU’s Scientific Committee on Plants proposed a five-year gap between GM oilseed crops and non-GM production, noting that the risk of contamination may arise for up to 10 years.

The government is expected to produce rules restricting how GM crops are grown so as to prevent contamination of conventional crops, after MEPs handed this responsibility to individual EU governments in a raft of GM legislation recently voted through the European Parliament.

The comments by the ACRE scientists come at the end of government’s Farm Scale Evaluations programme involving the experimental growth of GM oilseed rape. Trials of GM crops in the FSE programme took place in secret locations following sabotage by environmental groups concerned at contamination and the implications of GM food.

In addition to oil seed rape, GM maize and beet crops were grown in trials. However, there trials have provoked less concern of contamination as maize seed cannot survive the UK winter and beet crops are prevented from setting seed.

The first set of results from the FSE programme is to be published by the Royal Society in autumn. The government has said that no decisions on the GM crop varieties used in the trials are expected before the end of the year.

Friends of the Earth wants the EU to publish documents containing EU negotiating demands as well as requests by other countries to the EU as part of ongoing discussions towards the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).

Critics of GATS want negotiations made public because they believe the treaty will undermine democratic control over the provision of essential services such as health and education, as well as disrupting the delivery of these services to the poor, particularly in the Third World.

Friends of the Earth’s Corporate Globalisation Campaigner Eve Mitchell said: -Given the potential of GATS to affect much of our daily lives, it is vital that the process by which those agreements are reached is transparent and democratic. Parliamentarians and members of the public have simply not had access to key information.-

Mitchell said: -We want to get the information to people who need to know – nurses, unions – and to provide the possibility of some other input into the process, other than the government.-

Friends of the Earth asked the EC to publish details of requests by non-EU countries, such as the USA, to liberalise the provision of services in the EU, as well as details of the demands made by the EU to other World Trade Organisation members to open up their services to the private sector.

The EC refused to release the documents saying that to publish the information would undermine the protection of the public interest in regard of international relations. Friends of the Earth then made a formal complaint to the European Ombudsman, Professor P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, a former national ombudsman in Greece.

Although the Ombudsman has no binding powers on EC institutions, he can recommend that an EC body changes its position and failing this, can bring the matter to the attention of the European Parliament. However, a spokesman for the Ombudsman office said it normally takes six months to reach a decision.

Red Pepper has learned that the European Ombudsman has already dealt with a number of cases involving public requests for access to trade-related documents, many involving bilateral negotiations between the EU and US.

In addition to NGOs such as Friends of the Earth, other organisations have called for GATS negotiations to be made public. The European branch of the International Parliamentary Network, which includes a number of MEPs, said in October 2002: -GATS negotiations have been undertaken in total secrecy, with no democratic oversight whatsoever. Nothing justifies the fact that parliamentarians are not informed concerning these ongoing negotiations.-

-It is unacceptable that European and national parliamentarians, citizens, public service trade unions and NGOs should only be informed afterwards, when everything has already been decided, so that so-called “consultations” of the European or national parliaments become more formalities. Transparency should be the rule.-

A document leaked to NGOs and the media on 16 April 2002 showed the detailed requests made by the EU to 29 of its principal trading partners, including the USA and Canada, as well as less developed countries such as Brazil, Philippines and Indonesia. Requests included the liberalisation of major service sectors including water supply, waste treatment, energy, transportation, scientific research and postal services.

The strike, organised jointly by Amicus and the GMB, is the first time that British workers have gone on strike to defend final salary company pension schemes. BAE Systems and Rolls Royce have previously backed down over proposed benefits reductions following the threat of strikes.

Unions are angry that Rhodia is closing its final salary scheme to new entrants and claim the company took a partial “pensions holiday” over the last three years.

GMB leader Kevin Curran, said: “GMB members know that closing the scheme to new entrants puts the long term viability of the scheme at risk. Their security in retirement is being put in jeopardy by the decisions being made by the company now.”

Rhodia denies endangering the company’s pension scheme, arguing that union claims that the company took a contributions holiday are “unfounded.” After taking over Albright & Wilson in March 2000, Rhodia claims it increased the level of employer contributions for former staff, and made large cash injections to correct the pensions deficit it inherited.

Rhodia’s UK HR Director, Bob Tyler argued that closing the company’s pension scheme “does not affect the pension provision of current employees in any way.”

He added: “We are closing the final salary scheme to new members to protect the interests and benefits of current Rhodia employees and ensure the future security of the fund.”

Unions are planning further strike action at the company’s plants in Oldbury and Widnes for dates in August and September.

The Rhodia strike is the first time since the collapse of the stock market that British workers have walked out in protest at changes to their pension scheme.

It comes after thousand of French workers went on strike in June over reforms that would increase the pension contribution period for all workers to 41 years by 2012. And in May, Austrian workers staged the first general strike in decades at government plans to extend the period of pension contributions from 40 to 45 years and reduce benefits.

Many in the UK union movement believe pensions will be a growing issue of contention in coming years. In a recent survey, 90% of Amicus members said they would be prepared to take industrial action if their employer stopped contributing to their pension.

Emily Thomas, spokesperson for the GMB, commented: “Our members are becoming more aware of this issue, and it is becoming an integral part of negotiations on terms and conditions.”

“Lots of companies took pension contribution holidays. Some are now putting in double to make up for it. Others are using the stock market as an excuse, and are saying that putting more into pension schemes is not sustainable.”

Some in the union movement are calling on the government to bring in tighter regulation to ensure companies contribute to final salary pension schemes.

The government announced proposals in June, following consultations on the Pensions Green Paper, to safeguard the rights of workers with occupational pensions schemes. These included funds to protect pension rights when a company goes bankrupt, and the full buy out of pension scheme members when a company chooses to wind up its scheme.

Critics argue such measures are not enough. Lee Whitehill, spokesperson for Amicus said: ‘the Government should make it compulsory that employers make pension scheme contributions.”

He added: “We would like pension schemes to be seen as a form of deferred payment. It is money you have worked for. And we believe workers should get the same rights as other creditors if a company goes bankrupt.”

Emily Thomas of GMB agrees. She believes the UK needs: “mandatory standards for pension schemes. Companies keep reducing contributions and then blame problems on the stock-market. Pensions are a three-way responsibility: government, individuals and companies. Workers will only get security if everyone contributes what they should.”

The report claims that restrictions were imposed on the legitimate right to protest at these military bases.

Among the incidents described in the report are a coach of protestors being forced by police escort to drive away from the base, aggressive use of stop and search powers, the confiscation of banners, and the harassment of peace campers.

Liberty is particularly concerned at the use of anti-terrorism laws by police, including one incident involving the serving of an anti-terrorist order on an 11-year old girl.

In the report, “Casualty of War”, Liberty points out that anti-terrorist legislation was used despite not a single member of Al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups being apprehended.

Liberty is now calling for a House of Commons Select Committee on Home Affairs to investigate the use of the Terrorism Act 2000 at the protests.

A group of MPs, including Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Simon Hughes, and Labour MPs David Drew, Lynn Jones and Neil Gerrard, have called on the Home Secretary David Blunkett MP to explain why he told Parliament that the Terrorism Act 2000 was not being used to prevent protests at Fairford despite evidence to the contrary.

Simon Hughes MP said: ‘the Liberal Democrats are calling for a review of the policing at Fairford because it is quite clear that the right to protest was severely compromised. The big question is whether the actions of the police were necessary and proportionate given the risk of an attack on the base or the aircraft based there. I have serious doubts about that, not least because it appears that stop and search powers were used as a deterrent against protesters instead of as a tool for preventing terrorist acts.”

A spokesman for Gloucestershire police, who were responsible for policing at RAF Fairford, said the force was unable to comment on the Liberty report while legal proceedings against the force resulting from the protest were under way.

Campaigners were dismayed in the days before the vote when the UK government lobbied MEPs to vote against regulation that would tighten the rules on GM labelling.

A briefing document for UK MEPs, produced by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Food Standards Agency, described measures to deal with contamination as “unhelpful” and criticised the 0.9 per cent limit as “unwelcome.” The document argued: ‘the lower the threshold, the more difficult it would become to make the regulation practically effective to the benefit of genuine consumer choice.”

But Friends of the Earth, who obtained the document, rubbished the government’s claims. They said: “Most supermarkets and food manufacturers already have systems in place that can detect GM material at much lower levels to a 0.1 per cent limit of detection. The government’s own Central Science Laboratory has confirmed that this level of detection is accurate.”

Despite government worries about the stringency of the new EU laws, some critics believe they are not strong enough. In a report, ‘Towards a GM free Europe – Halting the spread of GMOs’, Green MEP Caroline Lucas argues that the new rules do not properly address the risk of contamination and will not protect the consumer. She said: “Research conducted by the European Commission, Defra and the European Environment Agency all conclude that licensing GM crops will almost inevitably lead to widespread contamination of non-GM crops.

“If we are to ensure the public has the right to choose whether to reject GM, we must ensure not only that GM is labelled, but that non-GM continues to exist. Unless we can address the problems of contamination, that cannot be guaranteed.”

Lucas argues the EU’s five-year-ban on new GM products should therefore remain. She said: “It is essential the moratorium stays in place at least until liability rules are agreed and, crucially, until someone works out if there is a way of maintaining the co-existence of GM and non-GM crops.”

The UK government launched a debate on GM products in early June called the GM Nation debate. It was scheduled to end on 18 July although a group of MPs, led by former environment minister Michael Meacher, have tabled an early day motion calling on the government to extend the debate until more research evidence is available.

The government must decide how wide buffer zones between organic and GM crops must be, and whether or not the GM-food industry will be liable for any genetic pollution or possible health and environmental impacts of GM crops.

Friends of the Earth campaigner Pete Riley said: “the government is clearly trying to rush through this debate as quickly as possible, with as little input from the public as possible. European politicians must take action to enable consumers to say no to GM.”