British Minister Gordon Brown said Friday that an opposition lawmaker’s decision to trigger a special election to protest planned terrorism laws is a farce.

David Davis, a senior member of the opposition Conservative Party, said Thursday he would quit the House of Commons _ then run for re-election with a campaign on what he calls the government’s assault on civil liberties.

Davis, a former contender for the leadership of his party, made his decision after Brown’s government narrowly won a vote to allow police to hold suspected terrorists for up to 42 days without filing charges, increased from a 28-day maximum.

But Davis won only lukewarm support from his own party for the ploy. And opinion polls show the public backs Brown’s plans for tougher terrorism laws.

“I think everyone now recognizes that this is a stunt that has become a farce and has simply revealed the deep divisions within the Conservative Party,” Brown said.

Davis, who was his party’s spokesman on law and order issues, said his campaign for re-election will focus exclusively on what he termed the government’s “slow strangulation of fundamental British freedoms.”

An election in his northern England district of Howden and Haltemprice is likely to take place before the end of July.

It was unclear what Davis’ re-election would prove. The Liberal Democrats, Britain’s third-largest party, who came in second in Davis’ district in 2005, have said they will not nominate a candidate. And Brown’s Labour Party, which received 13 percent of the vote in 2005, also appeared unlikely to field a candidate.

Davis may face a challenge from Kelvin MacKenzie, a former editor of the British tabloid The Sun, who said he might run in support of tougher terrorism laws if Labour avoids the race.

MacKenzie said that Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp. owns The Sun, had suggested he should run as an independent. An editorial in The Sun on Friday called Davis a “second-rate but ferociously ambitious politician” who had embarked on a “silly act of self-styled martyrdom.”

“I don’t feel it’s right that he should be allowed to have a walkover, a major procession,” MacKenzie told British Broadcasting Corp. radio. “I don’t feel my civil liberties as being at risk but I view my life as being at risk if I am on the Tube or the train and some bad guy wants to blow me up or blow my family up.”