Tag: Daily Mail

Report critical of human rights


Report published by Policy Exchange claiming the HRA has curtailed the rights of Parliament

November 2024

Slightly amended 13 November

An article appeared in the Daily Mail on 11 November under the headline ‘Rights Act ‘curtailed power of Parliament ”. It said ’eminent lawyers have compiled a dossier of 25 cases where the Human Rights Act was applied and have shown how its use removed power from Parliament’. It continued that ‘power once held in Westminster is increasingly being transferred to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg’ and quotes the example of the government’s wish to deport ‘illegal’ immigrants to Rwanda which was frustrated at the last minute by the Court.

The Mail did not tell its readers however, who produced this report and a reference does not appear in the online version either. It was in fact written by the Policy Exchange and published on 11th. The organisation promotes itself ‘as an educational charity [and] our mission is to develop and promote new policy ideas which deliver better public services, a stronger society and a more dynamic economy‘.

The problem is that the Exchange is an opaque organisation and does not reveal who funds it, does not reveal funding on its website nor tells us the amounts given by funders. Open Democracy is very critical about the secretiveness of this organisation, its ‘dark money’ and its influence in government both with the Conservatives and now, it alleges, Labour.

It was revealed by Rishi Sunak who admitted that Policy Exchange received funding from US oil giant ExxonMobil who helped the government write its draconian anti-protest laws. It serves as confirmation by the then prime minister of Open Democracy’s revelations that last year’s controversial policing bill, which became the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts (PCSC) Act, may have originated in a briefing from Policy Exchange. The organisation has form therefore in being hostile to rights and protests. It is curious that the Daily Mail, in the vanguard in promoting parliamentary sovereignty and a powerful force in the Brexit debate, failed to mention the influence of American money believed to be behind several of this and other think tanks. Quite where is this ‘sovereignty’ they are keen on?

The limited information provided to Daily Mail readers meant they are unaware of who funds these reports or the motives of the assumed funders (if indeed ExxonMobil are one of the funders). The report’s arguments are thin and present the reader with the notion that human rights were amply protected by our common law and there is no need for this ‘foreign’ court. Were that so and the victims of Hillsborough for example might disagree having been let down by the courts, the police and elements of the media in their search for justice. They finally achieved justice partly with the aid of the Human Rights Act so despised by the Mail. There are many victims of injustice who have found our institutions to be less than favourable to their interests – the Post Office scandal anyone?

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Rwanda: the morality question


How moral is the plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda?

July 2023

The wish by the government to deport asylum seekers and refugees to Rwanda has consumed considerable political capital and is a topic rarely out of the news. It is the flip side of the problem of people arriving by small boats across the Channel which causes so much fury in sections of the media. The extreme difficulty in applying for asylum from outside the UK is only occasionally mentioned. Legal routes have all but been closed off forcing those seeking asylum to engage in perilous journeys. According to ex prime minister Boris Johnson however, writing for the Daily Mail in his new job, said there are ‘numerous safe and legal routes for people to come to Britain’. His argument is that once word gets round the ‘camp fires’ of northern France that there is a chance of being sent to Rwanda, the business model of the smugglers will be broken (We must take radical action to get Rwanda done!) 30 June*.

This raises a moral question which is that the idea of deportation and treating them badly is to use people as a matter of policy. It is using deportation as a kind of punishment for a class of people no matter what the legitimacy of their claim might be. It is also logically unsound since it will be the refugees who will suffer and end up in Rwanda, not the people smugglers. The likelihood of the policy deterring the smugglers has been challenged recently in an impact assessment report which notes that the Home Office had little evidence to show that it might work. Academics say that it is issue of culture, kinship and language which are important factors and changing the rules has little effect.

Stopping the boats – assuming that to be possible – does not stop the problem. War, persecution, climate and poverty are among the factors which force people to leave their homes and embark on long, perilous journeys to seek asylum.

It has been pointed out that Rwanda is not the best of countries as far as human rights are concerned. There is little freedom of expression. Journalists are harassed and intimidated and opposition leaders find it hard to make headway. Bloggers and lawyers are intimidated and sometimes unlawfully detained. What has not been commented on however is that the deportation policy crucially depends on Rwanda being a safe place for us to send refugees and it will be extremely difficult for the UK government to stop the deportations if evidence of mistreatment by police or security forces in Rwanda subsequently emerges. It will also be difficult and embarrassing for the government to criticise President Kagame for any infringements of evidence of bad treatment. Having invested so much political capital in the policy, to admit the country is not in fact safe will be extremely awkward.

Refugees will find it hard to settle in the country as did those who went their as part of the – now abandoned – Israeli scheme. Perhaps the enthusiasm for the schemes owes something to several Australians who act in advisory roles in Downing Street. The Australians sent their asylum seekers to islands in the Pacific in a much criticised scheme.

Public attitudes toward refugees seems slowly to be changing and a recent IPSOS poll showed the UK to have one of the most positive attitudes towards immigrants at 56%. The numbers wanting our borders closed totally has declined. 54% wanted immigrants to stay. This despite the relentless rhetoric in the tabloid press.

Government attitudes seem to have hardened by contrast and ‘stopping the boats’ is one of the prime minister’s five pledges. In the i newspaper on Saturday (2 July) there was speculation that the government is considering leaving the European Court of Human Rights to enable it to overcome the courts’ objections to the deportations.

In all the commentary, the political jousting in the Commons and the seemingly relentless articles in the media, the moral argument seems seldom to emerge. The boat people are treated as though they are almost criminal and there is even an attempt to besmirch the RNLI for rescuing them in the Channel: RNLI a Migrant taxi service claims the Daily Mail (1 July*). Deportation is to be used as an instrument of deterrence.

Some indeed might be economic migrants and not ‘real’ asylum seekers. But a large proportion are desperate people fleeing desperate circumstances and need our help. We have a moral and legal obligation to hear their appeals. It is a great shame that the voices of intolerance have such salience in our media and in some members of the government.

*Articles accessed 3 July

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Yemen and Saudi Arabia


Recent events reveal western government’s attitudes to human rights

The events of the last few weeks in Istanbul, with the possible murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi embassy, has put a spotlight on the western government’s attitude to human rights and the rule of law.

For several years now we have been happy to sell arms to Saudi and we have been largely quiescent during the bombing of Yemen.  Yemen has been in the news recently with filmed reports of the increasingly desperate state the country and its people are in.  Reports of bombing of civilian targets and medical facilities receive brief coverage but do not however, generate much outrage.

The scale of misery there is now huge and represents a major tragedy.  The Saudi forces, aided by UK arms and military personnel, have wreaked terrible harm on the country.  A whole list of non-military targets has been bombed including ports, food production facilities and refugee camps.  As many as 13 million people are now suffering there.  Yet our politicians are largely silent and the ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, is feted here by the Royal family and others.

By contrast,  the possible killing of this journalist has plunged the Saudi kingdom into crisis and led to many politicians withdrawing from the forthcoming Davos in the Desert.  

Much of our media seemed happy to accept the idea that MbS, as he is known, was a moderniser and were excited when he allowed women to drive for the first time.  They overlooked the locking up of journalists, lawyers and human rights workers and did not notice that the woman who campaigned for the right for women to drive was in prison.  It was as though a hint of reform was enough to switch off any critical assessment of his actual performance as a despot.  Executions continue at an alarming rate and Human Rights Watch noted a spate of 48 in a four month period earlier in the year, mostly for non-violent offences.  Torture is still routine.

All this shows that the real concern is the sale of weapons and the supply of oil.  It is fair to argue that MbS knew our politicians were more concerned about trade than they were about human rights or international justice.  This is likely to have led him to believe he could remove the irritant of someone like Khashoggi and after a brief fuss, life would carry on.  He may well be right.

At present, we cannot know how this crisis will pan out for the Saudi government.  Western governments are going through contortions trying to balance the need to keep in with the regime to protect commercial interests, with some kind of need to show a moral standing in the face of credible reports that Khashoggi may have been murdered and dismembered in the embassy.  Liam Fox waited two weeks until today (18 October) to cancel his visit to the Future Investment Initiative.  Amnesty is calling for an investigation.

Today’s Daily Mail newspaper revealed the large number of MPs and ministers – mostly Conservative with a few Labour – who have accepted hospitality and gifts from the regime not all of them declared.  They include the Chancellor who was given an expensive watch.  The total, the paper reveals, is more than £200,000 since 2015 and £106,000 this year.  Allan Hogarth of Amnesty International  said in the article:

Any MP tempted by a lavish trip to Saudi Arabia ought to bear in mind that jailed Saudi human rights defenders are currently languishing in jail, while the Saudi coalition’s lethal bombing of Yemen is making lives miserable for thousands of poor and malnourished Yemenis.
Saudi Arabia’s appalling human rights record is well-documented, and no parliamentarian should go to the country without being prepared to publicly raise human rights.

George Graham, of Save the Children, said:

For three years Saudi Arabia has been killing children in Yemen, quite possibly with British-made weapons. The fighting has driven millions of families to the brink of famine and created the worst cholera epidemic in living memory. Our leaders must do what’s right and stop fuelling this conflict with military and political support for one side in this brutal war.  Daily Mail online [accessed 19 October 2018]

The naiveté of the MPs is astonishing and some of their comments are quite disgraceful in view of the appalling human rights record of the country.  It is unlikely that they will be pushing the government to adopt a more vigorous line in future.

However, it has put our relationship with an unsavoury regime in the spotlight and with papers like the Mail giving space to the story, there are slender grounds for optimism.

In our next blog, we shall be listing forthcoming events.  If you live in the Salisbury, Amesbury or Downton area and are interested in joining, please have a look and come along and make yourself known.  It is free to join our group.

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Joint Committee on Human Rights


House of Commons Committee taking evidence on human rights issues

A recent post by RightsInfo discussed the evidence given to the House of Common’s Joint Committee on human rights.  The committee’s investigation is to be welcomed.   It consists of 12 members drawn from both houses and its work includes scrutinising government bills for their compatibility with human rights legislation.  It is chaired by Ms Harriet Harman.

On 9 May it took evidence from three witnesses: Prof. David Mead from the school of law at UEA; Ms Martha Spurrier a director at Liberty; Dr Alice Donald a senior lecturer at Middlesex University and Adam Wagner of RightsInfo.  They were asked a range of questions on the issue of human rights, how they are perceived and how they work in the UK today.

Those of us who are concerned about human rights and campaign on the subject are often dispirited by the fairly constant stream of negative press coverage about human rights generally and the Human Rights Act itself.  The most vociferous critic and publisher of tendentious or misleading stories has been the Daily Mail under its editor Paul Dacre and the paper was frequently mentioned by witnesses during this session.  Coincidentally, this week it was announced the Dacre is to retire as editor of the Mail which is welcome news.  As the Guardian put it:

His sheer bully-power often frames the national debate by warping broadcasters’ news agendas, because they know the Mail makes politicians quake. Theresa May – his candidate – caves in to him every time, as paralysed on paying for social care as on Brexit.  Polly Toynbee 7 June 2018

Criticism of the act is of course acceptable, likewise pointing out flawed or questionable decisions.  We have a free press which is important.  But along with the Sun and the Express, the right wing media has carried on a campaign of ‘monstering’ human rights painting them as a threat to the safety and wellbeing of ordinary people.  Why this should be is difficult to understand.  Perhaps it is because the act shifts a degree of power to ordinary people and minorities in society – some of whom are unpopular – and this shift is in some ways distasteful to the elites (or the establishment as they used to be known).  Many readers of these papers will have benefited from the working of the act.  Indeed, Hampshire was mentioned where the authority has incorporated its principles into all its policies.

[Update, 11 June 18] For those interested in this subject, you may like to read an earlier post ‘Why do they hate the Human Rights Act?

The Committee

The committee discussion focused on several main themes:

  • the role of the press and in particular the right wing press
  • education both of the populace as a whole and in schools
  • the role of judges
  • legal aid and
  • politicians

The Press

Prof. David Mead said he had done research specifically on the Daily Mail because

it sticks out like a sore thumb in its reporting across a whole range of topics.  I have done research exclusively on that newspaper and on other across the board.  The findings I have reached are that it misportrays human rights law quite significantly.

He then went on to admit that he did not know of any causative effects of these stories on people’s attitudes to human rights.  As with Brexit, was it a case of the media picking up on reader’s misgivings and supplying the stories to suit or was it the media setting the tone and persuading people to their point of view?  Martha Spurrier said that sections of the press like the Daily Mail, ‘will fan the flames of attitudes and values which are pretty contrary to human rights project’.  She noted that the paper will cover stories about soldiers’ rights ‘sympathetically and accurately whereas with migrants there was a different approach’.  Part of the reason she thought was because these kinds of stories had traction not only in society but in ‘upper echelons of power.’

So if senior leaders are saying they want to create ‘a hostile environment for migrants’ is it any wonder that newspapers will then peddle stories about migrants being a pernicious group of people to sell those papers.  We cannot divorce rhetoric in one part of the system from rhetoric in another.  Martha Spurrier

This argument seems a little weak since there are newspapers and weeklies which do divorce the two.

Adam Wagner from Rights Info was a little more robust and said:

… however, I do think that certain right wing newspapers have ‘monstered’ human rights.  They have created a monster out of human rights in a deliberate and specific campaign.  […] when you talk to people, you find that they are generally influenced by the way that human rights are framed in the Daily Mail, the Sun and the Daily Express.  They talk about human rights being for other people not for us.  They refer to them fundamentally as being about stopping people being deported or crazy European Judges.

Education

There was discussion about the role of education – or rather the lack of it – in generating better understanding of human rights and their importance to us.  Wagner thought that human rights was removed by the Coalition government.  There was a lot of talk about the rule of law but he thought that they have been removed because they were seen as ‘a kind of leftie political thing.’

Going out to schools they thought was important which in fact is something the Salisbury Amnesty group does every year.

Significant budget cuts to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) made the issue of educating the public at large more difficult.  They now had around a quarter of the funds they had when they were formed.

Judges

The role of judges is important and Adam Wagner noted that a new generation of High Court judges have grown up in their careers with the Human Rights Act.  He said you cannot underestimate how important this is and how it has marked a fundamental change in our entire legal system.

He went on to describe how politicians and ministers in particular, use or rather misuse the judicial system.  They frequently, he claimed, passed difficult or contentious cases to the courts to decide so that the ‘judges can take the blame for this.’  When there was a furore following the decision, the Home Office would say that they are considering appealing the case which in fact they never did because the judge got it right.

Legal Aid

Another topic discussed was legal aid the severe cuts to its funding.  There were now ‘advice deserts’ all over the country where you will not be able to seek advice.

We have seen legal aid being decimated across areas of fundament importance to ordinary people’s lives: debt, welfare and benefits, housing, employment, clinical negligence, and immigration.   Martha Spurrier

Conclusion

This is just part of this committee’s deliberations on this important topic.  A consistent theme of the evidence given was the malign role played by the right wing media.  Although no one wanted to limit press freedom, the ‘monstering,’ as Adam Wagner put it, of all things to do with human rights was clearly regretted by the witnesses.  It was not clear however what the ‘direction of travel’ was.  The tabloids have been successful by giving the readers what they want.  If the public do not like migrants for example, then providing stories of their misdoings are going to sell papers.  Are the papers stirring things up or are they reflecting what their readers already think?  After all, the right wing papers sell in great numbers and the online version of the Daily Mail was the most read paper in the world.

The role of politicians and in particular ministers, was another theme running through the evidence.  A failure to give a lead and using judges to get out of receiving bad press for themselves showed them up in a poor light.

No doubt we will be hearing more as time goes by.

If you want to join the local group – which is free – you are very welcome to do so.  We suggest coming along to one of our events and making yourself known.  We have a stall in the market place on  the morning of Saturday 23rd of June and we are hosting a film on Thursday 14 June at the Arts Centre starting at 7;30 pm.

 

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