Publisher's Synopsis
During World War II a very considerable number of people were detained by the British Government without charge known to the law, or trial, or term set, on the broad ground that this was necessary for national security. Most of those held were not British Citizens, but were technically enemy aliens - in fact most of them were European refugees. A far smaller number of those detained were British citizens, and they were held under Regulation 18B of the Defence Regulations, the procedures for which operated largely in secret. It is with these people and this regulation that this book is concerned.;Although Winston Churchill was not responsible for the regulation itself, he was an enthusiast for its extensive use in 1940. But later in the war he came to feel increasingly unhappy about the violation of civil liberty over which he had presided, and the title of this book makes use of a quotation from his telegram on Regulation 18B.;Using primary sources this study sets out to remove the veil of secrecy which has, until now, surrounded this practice.
