Tag: conservatives

Unpublished letter


Text of letter sent to Salisbury Journal

The following letter was sent to the Journal in Salisbury but regrettably for space or other reasons it was not published (14th April).  We do not know at present what the current situation is with the promised bill to abolish the Human rights Act and replace it with a British Bill of Rights (or whatever it is to be called).  It is a manifesto promise and a draft was to be published in the Autumn but has not yet appeared.  It is possible that the arrival of Michael Gove into the Justice Dept. had something to do with it.

Now that we are in full swing with the debate about leaving the European Union, it is possible that this has been shelved for the moment.  Mr Gove is a leading proponent for the Brexit camp who – if current polls are to be believed – are doing well at the moment.  The calculation may therefore be that if they win then the scene is set to dump the HRA as well.

On the other hand, there will be a heavy workload in managing our exit and carrying out the negotiations to secure access to the European market once we leave, so there will be limited civil service and parliamentary time to spend on a new Bill of Rights.

But back to the letter and our local MP John Glen is keen to abolish the HRA and it would be a pity if he is given space in the Journal again to put forward his views and the opportunity is not given to those who disagree with him.  The unpublished letter:

Britain has had a proud history of leading the charge on human rights progress from the aftermath of the Second World War when we were key drafters of the European Convention of Human Rights, to the suffragette movement, to gay rights and other equality legislation. We have often been champions of progress.
What a shame, then, that this year the UK was singled out for criticism in Amnesty International’s annual report on the state of the world’s human rights.  Amnesty is warning that the government’s plan to tear up the Human Rights Act is a gift to dictators all over the world.  Russia recently drafted legislation which allows it to ignore human rights rulings it doesn’t agree with. Far from being able to condemn that action and call on Putin to uphold basic human rights, the UK is actually talking about following suit.  Music to the Kremlin’s ears, no doubt.
Here in Salisbury, the local Amnesty group is campaigning to save the Human Rights Act.  Britain should be a world leader on human rights.  The Human Rights Act protects ordinary people – from the elderly to hospital patients, to domestic violence victims – and we want to see those protections spoken about with pride by our politicians.  We should be redoubling our commitment to enduring human rights principles in these troubling times, not undermining them.
Let’s hope next year’s annual report on the UK reads: “much improved”.

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UK government soft-pedalling over the death penalty


Amnesty sets out facts of government’s reluctance to press for an end to the death penalty in some countries

The Government has been accused of “soft-pedalling” over the death penalty and seeming to make trade more important than human rights.  The charge by Amnesty International UK’s director Kate Allen (pictured in Salisbury Cathedral last year) comes as the human rights organisation released figures showing that at least 1,634 people were executed in 2015, a rise of 54% on the year before.  Despite being the highest number Amnesty has recorded since 1989, this total does not include China, where thousands were likely to have been executed but where the death penalty is a state secret.

The figures – contained in the report Death Sentences and Executions in 2015 – show that the top five executioners in the world in 2015 were China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the USA.

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This “profoundly disturbing” surge in executions was largely fuelled by big increases in Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, Amnesty International reported.  Amnesty International’s fears have been raised just hours after MPs on the Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee said there is “plainly a perception” the Government is prioritising trade and security with China, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain above human rights.

Ms Allen said:

Like the Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday, we’re worried that the Government has started soft-pedalling over foreign countries’ use of the death penalty, preferring to prioritise trade with countries like China, Saudi Arabia or Pakistan.

Until recently the UK’s policy of seeking global abolition of capital punishment had a clear focus and strategy.  Now the death penalty’s been thrown into the pot with other concerns and it’s much harder to tell whether the Government is prioritising this life-and-death matter.

If governments in Beijing, Tehran, Islamabad and Riyadh aren’t hearing about our outrage at executions after torture and unfair trials, then the executioners are going to think they’ve got a green light to carry on killing.

We want to see the Foreign Office publishing a clear strategy for its anti-death penalty work at the earliest opportunity.”

Amnesty International’s secretary general Salil Shetty said: “Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have all put people to death at unprecedented levels, often after grossly unfair trials.”

Last year, the Foreign and Commonweatth Office’s most senior civil servant made a frank admission to MPs that human rights “is not one of our top priorities” and that the “prosperity agenda is further up the list”.

Ministers deny the issue has been downgraded but a string of trade-focused, red carpet visits to the UK by the leaders of countries with some of the worst records of rights abuses has reinforced the perception of a shift of diplomatic emphasis.  Readers of this blog will know we have been following the twists and turns of this story for some months.  We wrote to our local MP Mr John Glen last year on Saudi Arabia and the rising toll of executions by beheading or crucifixion and we received a bland reply from the FCO minister Tobias Ellwood.  Since that time more evidence has emerged of policy changes designed it seems to scale down the human rights aspects.  We noted that when George Osborne visited China to the surprise of his hosts he failed to raise the question of human rights and executions at all.  Tobias Ellwood was reported by local media as congratulating the Saudis on the progress they were making with human rights.

Human rights minister Baroness Anelay said:

I am deeply troubled by the increase in the number of reported executions in 2015, which was driven by concerning increases in Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The UK opposes the death penalty in all circumstances and we make our opposition well known at the highest levels to countries which continue to apply it. Our message to them is clear, the death penalty is unjust, outdated and ineffective. It also risks fuelling extremism.

Despite these concerning figures there has been progress in many countries.  It is welcome that in 2015 Fiji, the Republic of Congo, Madagascar and Suriname all abolished the death penalty.

The Foreign Office will continue to use its diplomatic network to push for progress towards the global abolition of the death penalty.

Maya Foa, of Reprieve, described the rise in executions as “extremely troubling” adding: “It is all the more disturbing, therefore, to see what the Foreign Affairs Select Committee this week described as an ‘apparent deprioritisation’ of human rights by the UK government.

Now more than ever, Britain needs to be speaking out against the grave abuses – including mass trials, torture and death sentences handed down to juveniles and political protesters – being committed by its allies.

It is hard not to come to the conclusion that the primary aim of the government is trade and business with human rights coming a poor second if at all.  This overlooks the nature of ‘soft power’ and the fact that as a nation, we could be influential in humanising world affairs.  Instead, we chose to push out the red carpet for the most frightful regimes and, as the Panama papers are revealing, allow dubious individuals to buy up large parts of London using off shore tax havens.

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Excellent debate on the HRA


A debate on the Human Rights Act was held in Southampton

UPDATE: 12 March

A fuller version of the talk is now to hand and can be accessed here:

soton talk (pdf)

On Friday 19 February, the Southampton and Romsey groups of Amnesty hosted a debate on the HRA.  The speakers were Dr Clare Lougarre of Southampton University and Dr Alan Whitehead, the MP for Southampton Test.  A representative from the Conservatives was invited but did not take up the invitation.

Clare began by placing the HRA in its context as a natural consequence of the Euroean Convention on Human Rights [1950].  In the context of the debate on the current government’s manifesto commitment to annul the HRA, articles 2, 3 and 4 were significant.

  • art 2 says that court’s decisions must take into account the decisions, declarations or advisory opinion of the European Court
  • art 3 UK laws are compatible with the European Convention
  • art 4 says that if our laws are not in accordance with the convention they may issue a declaration of incompatibility.

She said there were two options for the government: they repealed the act but we stayed within the convention or, it withdraws its signature from the convention altogether.  In the first case, there would be little difference as we would ultimately be bound by the European Court.  In the second instance however there would be no recourse to the EC and the most likely affected by this are the vulnerable in society.

Dr Whitehead said he was puzzled by what the government wanted to do.  The animus against the HRA was based on myth, semi-truths and half truths he said.  One myth was that it was ‘Labour’s Human Rights Act.’  This was a frequent phrase used by conservative critics.   It simply wasn’t true he said, it was a cross party bill supported by many conservatives.  He was moved to ask ‘what part of the act don’t you like?’  He reminded the audience that it was a conservative – Winston Churchill – who was one of the prime movers in creating the ECHR in 1950.

One of the charges against it was that the court had ruled on areas which were never intended by the original convention, in other words there was ‘mission creep.’  This was inevitable since the articles were widely drawn and also, attitudes had changed over time with, for example, our approach to abortion.

The case that is frequently brought up is Abu Qatada.  This was presented as a failing of the HRA.  It was not.  The Home Office had made mistakes in its original paperwork and the reason he could not be sent back [to Jordan] was because either he, or the witnesses, would be subject to torture.  [He might have added that abolition of torture was subject to another treaty altogether.]

A further point made by Dr Whitehead was that it should not be for a single government to make law on something as important as this.  He did not think we would see anything before the end of the parliament and what would emerge would be a ‘mouse’ of a bill.

It was a lively and informed debate and all credit to the two Amnesty groups for organising it.  For further information on the HRA go to (among other sites) British Institute for Human Rights and Rights Info.  Now that the movement to come out of the EU is getting underway, the HRA will be a whipping boy for those that want us to leave the union.  Both these sites help counter the frequent flow of misinformation by some sections of the media and some politicians.

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Human Rights Act


Expect an announcement soon
Tapestry illustrating the UN Convention

Things have gone quiet with the plans to abolish the HRA and the promise of something before Christmas has not come to anything.  There is a glimmer of hope in that Michael Gove has taken over as Justice Secretary and seems willing to modify or drop completely some of the worst excesses of his predecessor.  However, the negotiations currently coming to some kind of conclusion concerning our role in Europe are likely to see a fresh assault on the act emerging soon.  The watch word is ‘sovereignty’.  Parliament wants to be sovereign and this is being presented as a good thing and it is implied we will be the better for it.  The right wing press will delight at this and there will be many articles about ‘bringing power back to Westminster’ with the implication that this will result in better laws for us all.  Salisbury MP John Glen is a keen advocate for abolition.

A parallel story over the past couple of weeks has been the tax situation of Google and other American behemoths who so manage their affairs that they pay little or only derisory levels of tax.  Here, our sovereign parliament (since Brussels has little to do with tax collection) has failed.  Indeed, successive chancellors have made numerous announcements about ‘cracking down’ but almost nothing seems to happen.  Hardly surprising since accountants from the big four firms are actually in the Treasury ‘advising’ the chancellor on tax policy.  So the idea that sovereignty is key and is some kind of magic bullet is clearly illusory and does not lead to better outcomes.

A useful guide explaining the HRA and what it does has just been published by the British Institute of Human Rights and is worth a look.  There is a short video as well.  No doubt we will be returning to this topic when the announcements are made.

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Britain’s role in the Yemen war


Britain’s involvement in Yemen war described in detail

February 2016

In this blog – our longest yet – we reproduce an article published in Dissident Voice which discussed in detail the role the British government is playing in supporting the Saudi government, by supplying arms and providing personnel, in its war in the Yemen.   Most of the material here will be familiar to readers but it is useful to have a separate voice.  Our local MP Mr John Glen has, so far, been silent on these matters. 

It is more than possible to speculate why Prime Minister David Cameron has declared it his mission to scrap the Human Rights Act – which is incorporated into the European Convention on Human Rights – it appears he simply does not believe in human rights.

For example, the fact that Saudi Arabia executed – including beheadings – forty seven people in one day last month, displaying their bodies from gibbets, failed to deter him from having British military experts to work with their Saudi counterparts, advising on which targets – and which people, it seems – to bomb in Yemen. Parliament has not been consulted, thus, without a chance to debate and vote, democracy too has been suspended.

The fact that in May 2013 Saudi also beheaded five Yemenis, then used cranes to display their headless bodies against the skyline (Al-Akhbar, May 21st, 2013) also did not trouble him.  Neither did that by November 10th, 2015, the year’s total executions had already reached one hundred and fifty one, the highest for twenty years, in what Amnesty International called “a bloody executions spree.”

But why care about human rights or outright savagery when there are arms to be sold?  As written previously, in one three month period last year UK arms sales to Saudi soared by 11,000%.  From a mere nine million pounds the preceding three months: “The exact figure for British arms export licences from July to September 2015 was £1,066,216,510 in so-called ‘ML4’ export licenses, which relate to bombs, missiles, rockets, and components of those items.”

Priority Countries

Cameron’s government treats such barbarism with astonishing sanguinity.  For instance, it has come to light that in 2011 the UK drew up a list of thirty: “‘priority countries’ where British diplomats would be ‘encouraged’ to ‘proactively drive forward’ and make progress towards abolishing the death penalty over five years.’ “

Saudi Arabia was not on the list, an omission which Amnesty International’s Head of Policy, Alan Hogarth called “astonishing.” (Independent, January 5th, 2016.)  However, a Foreign Office spokeswoman told the Independent that: “A full list of countries of concern was published in March 2015 in the (UK) Annual Human Rights Report and that includes Saudi Arabia and its use of the death penalty.”

Wrong.  In the Report under “Abolition of the Death Penalty”, there is much concentration on countries in the (UK) “Commonwealth Caribbean” and a casual, subservient nod at the US, but no mention of Saudi. Under “The Death Penalty”, Jordan and Pakistan, were mentioned, as was the “particular focus on two … regions, Asia and the Commonwealth Caribbean.”  Singapore, Malaysia, China and Taiwan, Japan (the latter, three executions in 2014) Suriname and Vietnam are cited. Saudi Arabia is nowhere to be found.

Under the heading Torture Prevention, there is a quote by David Cameron: “Torture is always wrong” (December 9th, 2014). Paragraph one includes: “The impact on victims, their families and their communities is devastating. It can never be justified in any circumstance.”  A number of countries are listed.  No prizes for guessing, in spite of medieval torture practices, which is not.

However, under “Criminal Justice and the Rule of Law” there is:

The Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) issued revised guidance on the human rights aspects of OSJA (Overseas Security and Justice Guidance) in February 2014.  The guidance ensures that officials do their utmost to identify risks of UK actions causing unintended human rights consequences.

What an irony as David Cameron is currently moving heaven and earth to halt legal action against British soldiers accused of acts of extreme human rights abuses in Iraq.  As Lesley Docksey has written:

The said ‘brave servicemen’ are in danger of being taken to Court over their abusive treatment, and in some cases murder, of Iraqi detainees during the invasion of Iraq.  Hundreds of complaints have been lodged with the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT), which was investigating between 1,300 -1,500 cases.  Many are simple complaints of ill treatment during detention, but some are far more serious:

  • Death(s) while detained by the British Army
  • Deaths outside British Army base or after contact with British Army
  • Many deaths following ‘shooting incidents’.

Worse, the British government is considering taking action against one of the law firms dealing with some of the cases, Leigh Day, with another, Public Interest Lawyers, in their sights. When it comes to hypocrisy, David Cameron is hard to beat.

Arms sales

Worth noting is that in the UK government’s own list of “countries of humanitarian concern”, according to the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT), the UK has sold weapons to twenty four out of twenty seven of them, with Saudi Arabia in a deal to purchase seventy two Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft in a deal worth an eventual £4.5 Billion.

Aside from the purchase of the Typhoon jets, major deals between Saudi Arabia and British companies include a £1.6bn agreement for Hawk fighter jets and bulk sales of machine guns, bombs and tear gas.  [We can add here that Salisbury firm Chemring’s accounts show a high level of sales to Saudi sufficient to be separately identified under company law]

In fact, Saudi Arabia have access to twice as many British-made warplanes as the RAF does, while bombs originally stockpiled by Britain’s Armed Forces are being sent to Saudi Arabia” – to currently decimate Yemen.

The overriding message is that human rights are playing second fiddle to company profits,

said CAAT spokesperson Andrew Smith, adding:

The Government and local authorities up and down the country are profiting directly from the bombing of Yemen. Challenging them to divest from Saudi Arabia … is something people can do directly.

In the light of a fifty one page UN Report on the bombing of Yemen obtained by various parties on January 27th, Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn called for an immediate suspension of arms sales to Saudi, pending the outcome of an independent Inquiry.  David Cameron stated, farcically, that: “Britain had the strictest rules governing arms sales of almost any country, anywhere in the world.”

However, in one of the key findings, the UN Report says:

The panel documented that the coalition had conducted airstrikes targeting civilians and civilian objects, in violation of international humanitarian law, including camps for internally displaced persons and refugees; civilian gatherings, including weddings; civilian vehicles, including buses; civilian residential areas; medical facilities; schools; mosques; markets, factories and food storage warehouses; and other essential civilian infrastructure, such as the airport in Sana’a, the port in Hudaydah and domestic transit routes.

It adds:

The panel documented 119 coalition sorties relating to violations of international humanitarian law.  It also reported cases of civilians fleeing and being chased and shot at by helicopters.  Moreover it stated that the humanitarian crisis was compounded by the Saudi blockade of ships carrying fuel, food and other essentials that are trying to reach Yemen.

The panel said that: “civilians are disproportionately affected” and deplored tactics that: “constitute the prohibited use of starvation as a method of warfare.” (Emphasis added.)

David Mepham, UK Director of Human Rights Watch commented:

For almost a year, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has made the false and misleading claim that there is no evidence of laws of war violations by the UK’s Saudi ally and other members of the coalition.

The UK Ministry of Defence, declining to say how many UK military advisers were in Saudi Command and Control Centres, said that the UK was: “… offering Saudi Arabia advice and training on best practice targeting techniques to help ensure continued compliance with International Humanitarian Law.” (Guardian, January 27th, 2016.)  Yet another quote from the “You could not make this up” files.

It has to be wondered whether the Ministry’s “best practice targeting techniques” includes the near one hundred attacks on medical facilities between March and October 2015, a practice which compelled the International Committee of the Red Cross, in November, to declare the organization: “appalled by the continuing attacks on health care facilities in Yemen …”

They issued their statement after:

Al-Thawra hospital, one of the main health care facilities in Taiz which is providing treatment for about fifty injured people every day was reportedly shelled several times …)

It is not the first time health facilities have been attacked … Close to a hundred similar incidents have been reported since March 2015. (Emphases added.)

Deliberate attacks on health facilities represent a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law (IHL).”

An earlier attempt to have the UN Human rights Council establish an Inquiry failed due to objections from Saudi Arabia, who, with help from Britain, currently Chairs an influential panel on the same Human Rights Council.  Farce is alive and well in the corridors of the UN.

Attacks on medical facilities

The repeated attacks on a targeted medical facility and other IHL protected buildings and places of sanctuary is a testimony to the total disregard for International Humanitarian Law, by the British, US and their allies and those they “advise”, from the Balkans to Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and now Yemen.

However, in spite of the horrors under which Yemenis are suffering and dying, and Saudi’s appalling Tobias Ellwwod MPhuman rights deficit, UK Foreign Office Minister Tobias Ellwood, an American-born former soldier, in a visit to Saudi Arabia last month was quoted in the country’s Al Watan newspaper as revealing:

the ignorance of the British to the notable progress in Saudi Arabia in the field of human rights, confirming throughout the visit of a British FCO delegation… that he had expressed his opinion regarding the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia before the British Parliament, and that the notable progress in this area has been obscured.

The Foreign Office strongly denied that Ellwood had expressed such a view.

The Saudi led, British advised and US ”intelligence” provided coalition is reported to have formed “an independent team of experts” to assess “incidents” (which should be described as outrages and war crimes) in order to reach “conclusions, lessons learned …” etc. Thus, as ever, the arsonist is to investigate the cause of the fire.

Amnesty, Human rights Watch, Médecins Sans Frontières (who have had three medical facilities bombed) and The Campaign to Stop Bombing in Yemen have all called for an independent Inquiry with the power to hold those responsible for atrocities to account.  None of which, however, would bring back the dead, restore the disabled, disfigured, limbless, or beautiful, ruined, ancient Yemen – another historical Paradise lost.

Felicity Arbuthnot is a journalist with special knowledge of Iraq. Author, with Nikki van der Gaag, of Baghdad in the Great City series for World Almanac books, she has also been Senior Researcher for two Award winning documentaries on Iraq, John Pilger’s Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq and Denis Halliday Returns for RTE (Ireland.) Read other articles by Felicity.

This article was posted on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2016 at 11:30am and is filed under Death Penalty, Human Rights, Militarism, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, United Nations, War Crimes, Weaponry, Yemen.

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Regulatory Powers bill


Why we should be concerned

The revised Regulatory Powers bill has now been published and has been debated in parliament.  It is better known as the ‘snoopers’ charter’ and tries to put the interception activities of the security services on a sound legal footing.  The previous act, RIPA, was clearly inadequate and revelations by Edward Snowden revealed that it was being widely circumvented and ignored.

It has to noted that the public at large is mostly relaxed about the degree of intrusion into their electronic activity.  The wholesale interception of emails, phone calls, Skype, Facebook and the like arouses no great passions.  The general view can be summed up as ‘I’ve got nothing to hide so they’re welcome to look at my emails if they want to.’

The line put across by politicians is that these powers are needed to defeat the activities of terrorists; international criminals; people smugglers and the like is widely accepted and seen as a price worth paying if we are to remain safe and such people are to be put behind bars.  The paradox however is that if you ask people the question ‘do you trust politicians?’ you are likely – indeed almost certain – to receive a very dusty or robust answer.  They are seen  – often unfairly – as untrustworthy, interested in their own careers, acting as lobby fodder or simply being out of touch.  So allowing these individuals additional powers does seem to be something of a contradiction.

So what are the arguments about the Regulatory Powers Bill and why does it all matter?  First is the issue of trust to which we have already alluded.  Before Snowden, many of the same politicians were telling us that matters were under control and that warrants and searches were only used when strictly necessary.  It was then revealed that comprehensive snooping was underway and that the ministers concerned – including those on the select committee – had little or no idea of the scope of the activity.  GCHQ was hoovering up large quantities of information seemingly without any oversight.

David Davis MP with Kate Allen, Salisbury Cathedral
David Davis MP, 3rd from left

… and they still don’t.  Only a very few individuals get to see the core information since most of it is presented in terms of briefings.  This goes back to the war when the JIC was set up to look at all the information and then put it together to inform the cabinet committee.  Very few MPs have any serious experience of intelligence matters and the nature and sensitivity of the information they receive makes it difficult for them to find out.  David Davies MP says we have a ‘comforting illusion’ about our intelligence services which leads to complacency.

There is a natural tendency for all organisations to talk up the issues they deal with.  By highlighting risks it enables them to win resources in Whitehall battles and in battles with sister agencies.  This needs to be remembered when blood-curdling threat assessments are issued.

There is a belief that more is better.  By simply amassing more and more information using ever more powerful computers it is argued this will enable the intelligence services to protect us better.  The only problem is that time after time it has been found to be wanting.  The 45 minute claim is the most famous but there are others.  Only this week we read of the death of Ahmed Chalabi who misled the USA in many different ways over Iraq.  So despite the massive scale of the American intelligence system, the billions of dollars spent on the CIA and NSA, one man comprehensively fooled the State Dept. over a period of several years.

A fundamental issue at stake is one of power.  It was not so long ago, following the collapse of East Germany, that the scale of their intelligence activities by the Stasi were revealed.  Miles and miles of underground corridors existed with hundreds of thousands of files on almost every citizen in the state.  Children informed on their parents; brother informed on brother; neighbour on neighbour.  All typewriter fonts were recorded so that any typed samizdat could be traced.  It was a nightmare world of paranoia and poisoned a generation.  People in the West were horrified when this was revealed.  That was clumsy by comparison to what the agencies can do today in the internet era.  Yet we seem relaxed, not horrified.

The issue of power and who has it is central to the debate.  Our society is based on division of powers in part going back to Magna Carta.  For one group to have too much power is recognised as dangerous.  We have the Lords (however imperfect) and the Commons.  We have a separate judiciary.  We have a reasonably independent media.  These divisions prevent despotism or at least make it exceedingly hard to achieve.  In addition there are elections every 5 years.

By allowing the intelligence agencies, to pry into every communication, to intercept communications between lawyer and client; to intercept emails of human rights groups such as Amnesty and to tap into the phones of journalists, is extremely dangerous and alters the balance of power significantly.  All these things have happened.

It is also dangerous because of the frailty of the people in power.  Lord David Owen in his books has investigated the mental capacity of various leaders in times of stress particularly war.  In both The Hubris Syndrome (Politico) and in In Sickness and In Power (Methuen) he shows that senior politicians can be unstable and suffer from hubris.  This led for example, Tony Blair and George W Bush to ignore or manipulate intelligence to fit their beliefs and with disastrous results.

The thirst for power can itself be dangerous.  Obtaining it, holding on to it, fighting off those who want to take it from them, and wielding it, can be the all consuming passion for a politician.  It is for these very reasons we should be extremely wary of granting them the advantage of even more intrusion.

It might reasonably be asked however, what about terrorist activity and especially a group like ISIS (or whatever we agree to call them)?  They are undoubtedly a cruel and dangerous organisation.  But they are not an existential threat to the UK.  Even if they manage to pull off some outrage in this country, it cannot be argued that they will change our way of life.  Giving up our liberties and our right to privacy is a heavy price to pay on the uncertain promise of greater security.

Our freedoms and liberties have been acquired over many centuries and we should be extremely wary at giving them up.  Vague promises of judicial oversight – which are empty since they will only oversee the process not the actual decision – should not blind us to the fundamental risk this bill will pose if it gets enacted.  Combined with the intention of scrapping the Human Rights Act, this is something to be worried about.

Draft_Investigatory_Powers_Bill

Sources

Guardian, 9 Nov 2015 ‘We haven’t had a Stasi or Gestapo, so we are intellectually lazy about surveillance‘  Interview with David Davis MP

Shami Chakrabarti, On Liberty Penguin Politics 2015.  Discusses threats to liberty generally.

FH Hinsley British Intelligence in the Second World War HMSO 1979.  Discusses how intelligence was organised and presented during the war.

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Rightsinfo video on the Human Rights Act


The Human Rights Act is under threat and we await the current government’s plans for its replacement which must be due very soon.  Rights Info has produced a short video which is worth a look which you can access from their web site or from this link.

Rights info video

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Government plans to modify the Ministerial Code


Government plans ‘seriously concerning’

Plans by the Conservative Government to modify the Ministerial Code are ‘seriously concerning’ according to Rights Watch.

The ministerial code issued in 2010 says;

Overarching duty on Ministers to comply with the law including international law and treaty obligations and to uphold the administration of justice and to protect the integrity of public life

The plan is to omit from the new code including international law and treaty obligations.  Phillippe Sands QC, a professor of law at University College London described the changes as ‘shocking’.  The government claim that this is merely a matter of simplification.

Why it matters

It matters because of the promise by the Conservatives in their text blockmanifesto to scrap the Human Rights Act and replace it with the British Bill of Rights a draft of which has yet to see the light of day.  Removing the international law will reduce the respect for judgements by international courts such as the European Court in Strasbourg.

Another aspect is that going to war and the use of things like drones are covered by international treaty and the UN Charter and not by UK laws.  Removing the international element therefore leaves ministers free to use this kind of weaponry unfettered.

In 2014, the government – then in coalition – wanted to remove what was termed an ‘ambiguity’ in the rules.  This has now been changed to simplification.

An observer of these events was Paul Jenkins who was a Treasury solicitor and he witnessed the intense irritation felt by the Prime Minister over our need to comply with foreign legal obligations.  This was largely in connection with the arguments over prisoner voting but the prolonged tussle over Abu Qatada was also likely to have been an irritant as well.

In a letter to the Guardian, the former legal adviser to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Frank Berman QC said ‘it was impossible not to feel a sense of disbelief at what must have been the deliberate suppression of the reference to international law.’

What is troubling about these changes is that they have to be seen in context.  We have restrictions on Freedom of Information; reductions in the ability of people to receive legal aid; court charges; and the threat to the Human Rights Act.  We will soon have the ‘snooper’s charter’ which will enable the security services to eavesdrop communications however they wish.

All these changes add up to an assault on the ability of individuals to hold the executive to account.  Ministers were quick to celebrate the anniversary of Magna Carta when it suited them but now seem keen to reduce freedoms wherever they can.

Sources: The Guardian; Rights Watch; the BBC; Financial Times; Daily Mail

UPDATE

Further responses and condemnation of this change in the code

British Institute of Human Rights warning

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UK support for Saudi on human rights council


We have already commented on the revelation that the UK helped secure a seat for a Saudi onto the UN’s human rights council and in a further development, Philip Hammond the Foreign Secretary has declined to deny the story.  Mr Trad, the man who will fill the role, has denounced UN attempts to get the death penalty ended internationally

This is further light on the claim that everything is being done to further human rights internationally.  Mr Glen MP told us a few days ago:

I can assure you that the change of wording is not an indication of a change in policy: the UK government will continue to work towards a complete abolition of the death penalty, using all the tools at its disposal.

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#FCO #armssales and #humanrights


UPDATE: 8 September

Letter in today’s Guardian (8 September):

The government would do much better to raid the export credit guarantee scheme [rather than the overseas aid budget] and other subsidies to the arms trade. This would raise funds for refugee provision and reduce arms sales to Middle Eastern states, impacting directly on the latter’s ability to wage war on their and other populations in the region.

Benjamin Selwyn, Director, Centre for Global Political Economy, University of Sussex

Saudi Arabia

Last month, we wrote to John Glen MP asking that his government take a more robust line with the Saudi Arabian government in view of the large increase in executions and floggings, many of which are carried out in public.  We noted that the French president Francois Holland had spoken publicly against the practice despite large arms sales in the offing.  The British government has said it prefers to lobby in private and to pursue a policy of quiet diplomacy.  By contrast, the Swedish government has ended arms exports to the country.  As policies go, it is one which is conspicuous by its failure to achieve anything at all and in other contexts would be declared ‘not fit for purpose’.

No to the death penaltyA recently published report by Amnesty shows that Saudi Arabia is one the top three world executioners after China (which executes thousands but the statistics are a state secret) and Iran.  Between January 1985 and June 2015, 2,208 were put to death.  102 have been executed in the first 6 months of 2015.  Crimes include ‘witchcraft,’ ‘sorcery’ and ‘apostasy’.   In some cases relatives are often not notified of the execution.

The FCO’s July in-year update on Saudi says:

We remain concerned about the continued use of the death penalty in Saudi Arabia, including the fact that trials and executions do not meet the minimum standards which the EU advocates in countries where the death penalty is applied. We regularly raise the issue with the Saudi authorities, bilaterally and through the EU, and will continue to do so. There has been a significant rise in the number of executions this year. While no official figures are published, according to statistics reported by NGOs over 100 people have been executed since 1 January. NGOs report that the majority of executions were for murder and drug-related offences

In response to our letter to Mr Glen, we received a letter from a FCO minister, Mr Tobias Ellwood, which assured us that the Foreign Office was doing all it could to end the practice and that ‘the abolition of the death penalty is a human rights priority for the UK’.  The HMG Strategy for Abolition of the Death Penalty (2010 – 2015) states:

Promoting human rights and democracy is a priority for the UK.  It is a long standing policy of the UK to oppose the death penalty in all circumstances as a matter of principle (p2)

Within days of receiving this letter however, we discovered that it is no longer an explicit FCO policy.  The new policy has dropped any reference to abolishing the death penalty.  We also noted that Private Eye had a piece on the very same Mr Ellwood who had been a guest of the Saudi Government on a £6,000 fact-finding visit sponsored by a defence forum.

It’s hard not to come to the conclusion that defence sales matter far more than the dreadful human rights situation in countries like Saudi Arabia which – apart from public floggings and beheadings – tortures its citizens and has severe restrictions on the lives of its women.  Saudi Arabia is the leading destination for UK arms sales amounting to £1.6bn in 2014.

Nicholas Gilby of the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) reported on the high level of corruption in this industry:

This paper examines the Government’s approach to corruption within the UK arms industry and shows it has very dirty hands …

… civil servants told to ‘look the other way’ and not ask awkward questions.

Chemring, which has one of its factories just outside Salisbury, had sales to Saudi Arabia of £47.8m last year and £97.6m in 2013 (source: annual report).

UK governments have invested a lot into the arms trade.  Support includes marketing support via DESO (Defence Exports Services Organisation); export credit guarantees; around £26m in R&D costs and something called ‘launch customer support’ which is buying weapons from a UK supplier even though overseas suppliers are cheaper.  There are also missions by ministers and members of the Royal family to foreign countries like Saudi.

Could it be that the Foreign Office was embarrassed by such an explicit policy in the face of a rising tide of executions in countries such as Saudi Arabia; Pakistan and India, all countries where arms sales are important?

Successive governments have claimed a devotion to human rights and a commitment to end the death penalty.  The reality it seems is that arms sales trump this commitment and in dropping the express statement of policy, the FCO is at least being honest.

Following the change of wording by the FCO which seemed to be in contradiction to the assurances given to us by the minister and Mr Glen, we wrote again asking why the policy had changed.  We await a reply…

CAAT report

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