S.O.T. is the latest acronym to come out of Liberal HQ: Save Our Terrorists.  The unco guid are outraged because Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary, has written to the US Justice to confirm that he has no objection to the American authorities trying two nominally British jihadists for their crimes—and without lodging the standard reservation, that if found guilty they must not be executed. It is clear from many accounts (please excuse me from repeating that linguistic curse, “multiple”) that the two men, now held in Syria, are guilty of committing atrocious crimes. Yet from liberals the protests rise up like a fountain at this betrayal of every value “we” hold most dear.  It’s the “we” I object to: there’s plenty of evidence that the British public has no objection to retaining the death penalty for certain acts. The two jihadists have abrogated the secret treaty that binds us all to the human race, and are, in the basic sense, “outlaws.” They have abandoned their human rights.

A parallel development is striking, and most welcome. The British authorities have now started to plan a revival of the Treason Act (1351). Britain has not executed anyone for treason since Lord Haw-Haw in 1946, and the Act is in abeyance for good legal reasons. A new, revised Treason Act would have significant effects, of which the
key is this: terrorism is a global offence, but treason is specific to a nation. A newly-defined offence of treason would give the State the right to try its own citizens. Nationalism is thus confirmed as a reality, and not something to be shunned as in parts of the media. Liberals will be shocked at the return of treason: why, it would be approved by Orban of Hungary!