The US administration’s self-proclaimed legal justification for holding terror suspects without trial in Guantanamo Bay has been removed by Washington’s shift in policy from a “war on terror” to a “struggle against violent extremism”, the Liberal Democrats said on Monday.

Menzies Campbell, the Lib Dem deputy leader and foreign affairs spokesman, told the Financial Times on Monday that the White House’s decision to drop the war on terror terminology directly affected the contentious Cuban detention centre.