A Guantanamo Bay for Britain? How far will Cameron go?

Has David Cameron painted himself into such a tight corner with his promise to stop British jihadists returning home from Syria and Iraq that his only solution will be to propose opening a Guantanamo Bay-style camp, somewhere offshore?

The question is being asked in Westminster after the Prime Minister, having raised the spectre of a “generational struggle” against British jihadists and declared it essential that we deny them the right to return, was unable to explain how he plans to achieve this.

Nick Robinson, the BBC’s political editor, accused the PM on this morning’s Today programme of being "vague to the point of waffling" while in The Times Rachel Sylvester writes: “It’s hard to avoid the suspicion that No 10 had ramped up the rhetoric on Friday to try to bury bad news after the defection of Douglas Carswell to Ukip, without thinking through the consequences. The Tories also believe they can benefit electorally from talking tough on terrorism.”

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Whatever his motives, Cameron has come up against serious opposition - from legal advisers and from his coalition partners - to his proposal to strip returning jihadists of their British citizenship before they fly home, making them stateless in international law.

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg insisted on the Today programme: “We are not going to do something which flouts our international and domestic legal obligations.”

The legal difficulties were described as "really significant" on the same programme by David Anderson QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation.

“Where is the power to be exercised?” asked Anderson. “Is it when a person is in Turkey on the way back from Syria? Where does the person go - back to Syria for a bit more jihad or do they find a beach somewhere in Turkey?”

As Sylvester puts it: “Downing Street was unable to provide details of where these UK citizens would end up, raising the prospect of a zombie army of stateless extremists who would be impossible to trace, or a shadow troop of jihadists shuttling between airport departure lounges in different countries.”

So, is the only solution some sort of internment camp?

In the Commons yesterday, Ian Paisley Jnr, the DUP MP for North Antrim, urged Cameron to "consider detaining those heading to the airport who are going to have their passports seized or those returning, in an internment-like situation."

Far from ruling out the option of internment, the PM said he would look at the idea.

But setting up interment camps in Britain, as we did in World War Two for Germans and Italians living here, wouldn’t work today because those interned would be able to use UK law and European conventions on human rights to obtain their release.

To avoid that, the camp or camps would have to be established on foreign soil – hence the Guantanamo solution.

US intelligence sources say that Guantanamo Bay has helped them to resolve the problem of what to do with jihadist fighters, despite all the criticism it has received. Barack Obama came to power promising to close the camp in Cuba but it is still open, because it has proved too useful to abandon.

It goes without saying that both Clegg and Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, would find such an idea hard to stomach. But Cameron is running out of options to fulfill his headline-grabbing promise to tackle returning IS fighters.

Among the ideas the PM specifically rejected yesterday was that put forward by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson: that the burden of proof should be reversed so that those returning from Syria and Iraq would be open to arrest and incarceration unless they could prove they are innocent.

Coupled with the rejection of his proposed new airport in the Thames Estuary, it might be thought that this is turning out to be a bad week for the London mayor. But the rejection of ‘Boris Island’ by Sir Howard Davies's Airports Commission could play into Johnson’s hands.

When he first mooted ‘Boris Island’, and with it the closure of Heathrow, he had no idea he would one day be seeking to take over the safe Tory seat of Uxbridge and Ruislip – where Heathrow employs thousands of his would-be constituents.

Today Boris is blustering that he will fight on for his island dream. But expect him to start campaigning for Heathrow after the general election, when the final choice will be between Heathrow and Gatwick.