The group’s minutes and reports for October 2023
October 2023
We are pleased to attach the minutes of the group’s meeting on 12 October 2023 thanks to group member for compiling them.
Suella Braverman’s speech
Home Secretary, Suella Braverman’s speech to the Tory party conference in Manchester
October 2023
Suella Braverman made a speech on the fringe of the Conservative Party conference on 3 October in which she said the Human Rights Act should be renamed the ‘Criminal’s Rights Act’. The speech as a whole – covering areas such as immigration and the threat that Britain will ‘go properly woke’ under Labour – received a standing ovation by a packed auditorium. She said that Britain was ‘enmeshed in a dense of set of rules designed for another era’ and that these rules acted against the interests of the country. The speech was dubbed a ‘red meat address’ by the Daily Mail.
Hostility to the HRA has a long history in the Conservative Party and many of its members would like to see it abolished and for us to come out of the European Convention. Plans to reform the act seem to have been shelved for the moment but may well reappear in the manifesto for the next election.
Commentators have seen the speech, together with one given in Washington on 26 September, as part of her leadership campaign ahead of a possible Conservative defeat and an election for a new party leader. But an attack on the HRA and the reception given to her remarks on this and other topics are of concern. A standing ovation suggests an element of the party still wish to see the legislation abolished. In some ways it is hardly surprising such has been the remorseless denigration of the act and its supposed iniquities by the right wing press. The impression has been firmly planted that the act is a criminal’s charter and enables such people to escape justice. This despite our gaols being crammed full to bursting and news that foreign prisons may have to be rented to house yet more.
People’s rights need protection like never before. We have witnessed example after example of wrong convictions, unarmed people shot by the police, criminal activities by the police themselves and a steady trail of mistrials and overturned convictions that to argue that we need less protection by abolishing our rights is perverse. The positive effects of the act seldom gain a hearing. In the coverage of the Hillsborough disaster for example, that it was the Human Rights Act which enabled families to gain justice scarcely got a mention in reporting by the right wing press.
Miscarriages of justice, police errors and overturned convictions, all weaken the public’s faith in the justice system. It is therefore depressing to see the Home Secretary make these remarks and receive a standing ovation for them. She seems to ignore the fact that terrorists and criminals are only alleged terrorists and alleged criminals until due process has found them guilty (or not) a fact which, as a barrister, she well knows.
Sources: APnews, Times, Guardian, Daily Mail, Evening Standard
Reform of Human Rights Act scrapped
Government confirms plans to scrap the HRA will not now go ahead
June 2023
It seems to have been a permanent fixture of Conservative party manifestos and in ministerial statements, a desire to rid the country of the Human Rights Act, an act brought into being as a result of cross-party consensus. It is also a fixture of tabloid rage with hundreds, possibly even thousands of articles, referring to the act as a ‘terrorists’ charter’ and a means for criminals of all kinds to escape their just deserts.
But when it came to it, defining quite what was to be abolished and, more particularly, what it would be replaced with, seemed to defeat party legislators and the announcement that it was to be shelved appeared almost to put them out of their self-imposed agony. The Justice Minister, Alex Chalk, said “[it] was committed to a human rights framework which is up to date and fit for purpose and works for the British people“. The implication is that the current act does not work for the British people yet little or no evidence is put forward to this effect. It is also interesting to note that the government itself relied on the act when it came to the matter of releasing information to the Covid enquiry. Another organisation which routinely rails against the Act, the Daily Mail, relied on its provisions to prevent its journalists being identified in the Prince Harry libel trial.
The core problem is the people crossing the channel in small boats. Only this week, a report has been published which estimates that the cost of sending one individual to Rwanda could be in the region of £170,000 and hardly shows value for money. They also doubt the claim that it would have a deterrent effect.
It is good to note that the plan to abolish the act is now no longer an immediate threat. But the thinking behind it and the ceaseless criticism of it as being a cause of problems in our society is regrettable. The Act gives protections to ordinary people and enables them to seek justice from the state’s actions. Without it the victims of the Hillsborough disaster for example would not have succeeded against the state, the police and the media who all in their various ways, blamed the victims for the tragedy.
The curious thinking of Danny Kruger MP
Danny Kruger is the MP for Devizes in Wiltshire
April 2023
UPDATE: 6 July 2024
Kruger wins the newly created seat of East Wiltshire in the 2024 General Election. None of his odd thinking emerged during the election period.
Danny Kruger has become conspicuous in recent weeks as the quasi leader of a group of MPs who wish to see a firmer crackdown on the boat people crossing the Channel to claim asylum in the UK. The issue of the boat crossings is the subject of considerable political controversy and many people are outraged at the arrivals.
He was in the news recently when it was reported that the government had ‘caved in’ to demands by party rebels, in which he was a leading member, to amend the Illegal Immigration Bill by allowing ministers to ignore European Judges in certain situations. This sprang from the last minute intervention by the European Court which prevented the deportation flight to Rwanda last year from leaving Boscombe Down near Salisbury. This decision enraged many in the Conservative party and much of the right wing media.
He is in the news again this week for an article in the New Statesman (online) which repeats and amplifies comments about immigrants calling it a ‘national disgrace’. He goes on:
“The importance of this topic to many voters cannot be overstated. To put it as plainly as people outside the liberal bubble put it: the small boats scandal shows that the powers that be are not on the side of the British people, but instead serve the abstractions of “human rights”, “international law”, or other signals of the middle class virtue. Lawyers and activists get to buff their own haloes while ordinary people pay the price, in longer queues for public services, lower wages and higher taxes”.
The placing of human rights and international law in inverted commas is interesting and is a piece with another quote from a chapter he wrote on this subject discussed below. The article suggests that ordinary people are experiencing difficulties in obtaining public services and having to pay higher taxes because of this immigration. The facts speak otherwise and a number of Home Office reports demonstrate that immigrants are a net benefit to the UK economy. Mr Kruger may be forgiven for not knowing this as the reports have not been published. Wording such as the ‘abstractions’ of human rights suggest that they are in some way theoretical and is perhaps intended to be dismissive. ‘Powers that be’ is also puzzling since that is the Conservative party of which he is a member. Issues of access to public services is as a result of government policy, austerity and other matters not connected with immigrants.
In a book produced by a group of backbench Conservatives called Common Sense: Conservative Thinking For a Post-Liberal Age (2021) is a chapter written by Danny Kruger entitled Restoring rights: Reclaiming Liberty. This chapter goes a little way to explain the thinking of the MP.
His chapter contains odd reasoning and some curious logic. His first claim is that the European Convention on Human Rights, drafted by British Lawyers after World War II [lawyers from other countries were involved so it is incorrect to say ‘British lawyers’] ‘sits uncomfortably with the English tradition of preventing tyranny’. This will come as something of a surprise to the millions of people who were enslaved and were worked to death in the sugar plantations or those who worked in fearful conditions in nineteenth century factories. The acquisition and retention of Empire also has many horror stories. Quite where this ‘prevention of tyranny’ was taking place is not made clear.
Human rights are misnamed he claims ‘the rights we really need, and the only ones we really have, derive from something higher and something lower than mankind. They derive from the idea of God, and from the fact of nations: from a Christian conception of law …’ It would be difficult to locate in the Bible many of the principles enshrined in the ECHR or the Human Rights Act (which Mr Kruger is keen to abolish) if only because these ideas and principles were a long way from a society colonised by the Romans and where practices like slavery were common. There are many favourable references to slavery in the Bible for example. The ‘lower than mankind’ element is not explained (although it could be a reference to Psalm 8).
He quotes approvingly the American author Patrick Deneen who wrote Why Liberalism Failed (2018). Many do not agree with Kruger’s admiration of Deneen’s book regarding his blame of a huge range of society’s ills on excessive liberalism to be odd not to say ridiculous.
His analysis seems to go seriously awry however with the following passage:
“And so, from an early stage we came to think of rights as the means by which we are set free from external pressure, set free from obligations to others; and from there it is a small step to the hypocritical assumption that rights confer obligations on others to satisfy us” p49 ibid. This is a unique view of what human rights is about. Surely the point of our system of government is that it does involve governments carrying out policies which are about the wellbeing of those who are governed? It is why we elect members of parliament to raise taxes and pass laws which make our life as acceptable and as fair as possible. Who are these ‘others’ he refers to?
To read all of Mr Kruger’s articles and speeches is to struggle to find a coherent strain of thought as far as human rights is concerned. They are a mixture of false premises, muddled thinking and ideas sprayed around which frequently make little sense. Yet he appears to be someone of influence in the party at present and is often to be seen being interviewed.
Sources include: New Statesman, the Sun, Evening Standard.
Amnesty webinar: Bill of Rights
Amnesty webinar on the suspended Bill of Rights
21 September 2022
Amnesty ran a webinar on the Bill of Rights on 21st September having planned it when the bill was still a real option on the political calendar. Following the election of Liz Truss as the new prime minister, the bill was dropped. A spokesman said it was ‘unlikely to progress in its current form’.
The webinar was quick to point out that this is probably only a temporary suspension: a new bill was likely to see the light of day at some time in the future. The Conservative party has been hostile to the Human Rights Act for some time and abolishing it was a promise in its last manifesto. One of the problems with the bill one of the speakers noted, was it was rushed following the Rwanda decision by the European Court. It has been described as a ‘mess’ by several critics. One point which came through strongly was that the intention to do something in the way of a new bill if only to assuage the anti-European sentiment by a section of the Conservative party.
Another key element the webinar noted were attitudes to immigration and its related problem, deportation. This has posed severe problems for the government most particularly with people crossing the Channel in small boats the numbers of which have reached record levels. The government has felt itself vulnerable both from those coming in and its inability to deport those who make it to our shores. The desire for more draconian action, which brings us into conflict with the European Court, has been a key driver behind the proposed bill of rights.
Liz Truss has suggested that we may leave the Court which was described as ‘seismic’ in the webinar. The only two countries to leave the jurisdiction have been Russia for its invasion of Ukraine and Greece for its coup. For Britain to leave on the pretext of immigration problems was described as ‘extraordinary’.
A key figure is Dominic Raab MP who as Justice Secretary introduced the bill. Raab is the author of a book called The Assault on Liberty (Harper Collins, 2009) in which he sets out his objections to what is called the ‘rights culture’. A key passage gives an insight into his thinking:
On a daily basis, we read about the steady stream of human rights rulings undermining law enforcement, criminal justice and national security. Common sense turned on its head – warped the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and magnified by Labour’s feckless Human Rights Act – allows human rights to be wielded to protect and compensate serious criminals rather than their victims.
The Assault on Liberty, ibidThere is also the familiar canard of the police unable to rescue a child drowning in a pond because of a health and safety culture. The book provides a useful background to his thinking and possibly, other of his colleagues. The book goes on to argue that the human rights culture is fundamentally at odds with the British notion of liberty. The notion of liberty, which spawns ideas of deregulation, is an important backdrop to the proposed new legislation. The combination of a ‘rights culture’ and an alleged loss of liberty is one of the causes of our decline as a nation.
The government may be tempted to introduce a new immigration bill to get round the Rwanda problem. It is also subject to a constant demand to limit rights which are seen as economically damaging. Although the bill of rights is suspended, the danger is not over. Politicians such as Suella Braverman and Liz Truss are in important positions are firmly wedded to the notion of a reduction in our rights.
Bill of Rights shelved
September 2022
The Bill of Rights, which was a key feature of the Conservative Party’s manifesto, was shelved today as it was about to receive its second reading in parliament. It is unlikely to mean it will disappear altogether as the new government is keen to rid itself of the European Court and needs new legislation to carry out its policy of flying some immigrants to Rwanda. We await more details.
Further threats to our human rights proposed
Suella Braverman, the attorney general, proposes further action to counter the influence of the European Court of Human Rights, ECHR
August 2022
The onslaught on the UK’s human rights continues apace. In a recent speech to the Policy Exchange thinktank, Ms Braverman argues for radical action to counter the influence of ECHR rules on UK legal affairs. This latest attack is almost certainly triggered by the decision of the European Court to prevent the deportation to Rwanda of a number of immigrants. This occurred almost minutes before the plane was due to take off from Boscombe Down airfield, a mile or two from where this is being written.
The government is evidently determined to reduce several key rights enjoyed by British people sometimes for centuries. A new act will make it harder to protest and gives the police and ministers greater powers to carry curtail them. The ability to seek judicial review is also to be curtailed. The ability to strike is to be subject to yet further restrictions. The Human Rights Act itself is to be abolished and replaced with a Bill of Rights which will be weaker. The weight of legislation, current or proposed, will together amount to a significant reduction in the ability of ordinary people to hold the government to account. We must also add sustained attacks on the BBC, its journalists and its funding, and the intention to sell off Channel 4 which are both seen as irritants.
We discussed in an earlier post, Ms Braverman’s dubious and we argued – quite inappropriate – attitude towards torture, echoing the arguments of Prof Posner of Chicago. We referenced an article in the Observer which showed that several of her claims about her career were of doubtful veracity: no record could be found for example of a supposed contribution to a legal text book. Her claims about the chambers she worked in were also questioned. She was one of the candidates to become Britain’s new prime minister.
In a review of her speech in the Guardian, she is quoted as saying:
[…] a culture where fringe campaign groups, purporting to champion rights, have claimed a moral high ground and have adopted an attitude of intolerance. Often with vastly inflated salaries and armed with a Newspeak dictionary, they have created mighty citadels of grievance across the public sector and made huge inroads into the private sector
Guardian, 11 August 20122, p5
She further claims that the UK now has a ‘rights culture’. One of the problems in discussing her comments and speeches is that few examples are given to illustrate the points she is making. She attacks the judiciary, the human rights community and is vociferous about ‘woke’ matters. She continues in office largely because of her loyalty to the outgoing prime minister, Boris Johnson. As Attorney General, she has to pursue a difficult balancing act. She is both law officer to the government and a member of the government, one of those peculiarly British positions which is fundamentally absurd but previous post holders have acquitted well. Ms Braverman has not, perhaps because of her loyalty to a prime minister who was forced to resign because of one scandal too many.
The concern is that the rhetoric and legislation which comes from it are becoming a danger. Human rights are seen as a threat. Quite how this ‘rights culture’ has damaged the interest of British citizens is never explained. She shares with Dominic Raab a dislike of protest, the judiciary and the European Court and they seek to weaken all of them, eagerly supported by the right wing press. Our system of government, imperfect as it is, is built on the notion of checks and balances. They seek to garner more power to themselves and, by more and more legislation, reduce the opportunity for challenge by protest or via the judiciary.
This post was written without using a Newspeak dictionary.
Rishi Sunak MP
If Sunak becomes the new prime minister, what can we expect on the human rights front?
July 2022
Rishi Sunak is, at the time of writing (15 July 2022), in the lead in the race to become the new prime minister of the UK. Asking about his attitude and voting record in connection with human rights is therefore of considerable interest. It doesn’t look good.
They Work for You, the site which analyses MP’s voting records shows that Sunak ‘generally votes against laws to promote equality and human rights’. He voted against retaining the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. He is in favour of repealing the Human Rights act which has been Conservative party policy for some years now and a draft Bill of Rights is awaited.
When asked about withdrawing from the European Court of Human Rights he is quoted as saying (vaguely) ‘all options [were] on the table’.
He has voted consistently for policies to increase mass surveillance.
He is in favour – despite being the grandson of an immigrant from Africa – for sending immigrants to Rwanda.
Altogether a grim collection of negative attitudes and there seem to be no speeches or much information about his attitudes or likely policies on this important subject. There was nothing in his manicured promotion video. It very much looks like we shall get the existing policies carried forward unchanged. He seems to be part of the party which is hostile to human rights, wants to see them rolled back and to detach the country from European norms and treaties.
He is supported in the election by the MP for Salisbury Mr John Glen who likewise has a record of voting against equality and human rights issues according to They Work for You.
Sources: Open Access Government; LBC; Metro; They Work for You [we carried out an extensive search for any other relevant material but were unable to find any]
The Bill of Rights
Conservatives seek to abolish the Human Rights Act with a new Bill of Rights
Human rights are about power, who has it, who wields it and the effects on those without it. These rights have been struggled over for centuries. Once it was kings (and the occasional queen) who wielded absolute power. Gradually, it was wrested from them and parliament achieved supremacy after 1688 and the Glorious Revolution. It was a rather more bloody affair a century later in France.
The all party Human Rights Act in 1998 – a fact rather overlooked by some ministers who characterise it as ‘Labour’s’ act – incorporated the European Convention into British law and marked a sea change in the relationship between the people and the government and agents of government. It set out a series of rights which enabled the ordinary subject to challenge government decisions, negligence or criminal acts. Notable successes include the Hillsborough disaster where the police attempted to shift blame onto the supporters but after years of campaigning – using the HRA as a key lever – the surviving families were able to achieve measure of justice and highlight police failings as a key factor in the tragedy. Other scandals have involved hospitals and other police miscarriages where victims have been able to bring to light serious failings in these institutions.
Despite being such a step forward, many in the Conservative party and a major parts of the press, have waged a remorseless campaign against the act. The Conservatives have pledged to reform or abolish it in all their recent manifestos. The press have published story after story along the lines that the act prevents criminals getting their just deserts, it helps terrorists escape justice and most recently, preventing asylum seekers from being exported to Rwanda. Many of the stories are exaggerated or have nothing to do with the HRA. For readers of this material, the decision by Dominic Raab to publish the Bill of Rights this week (June 2022) cannot come too soon and will enable they believe, proper justice to return to the UK. ‘Lefty lawyers’ will be put in their place and before long, plane loads of asylum seekers will be jetted off to Africa. The power of the judiciary to intervene will be reduced.
To understand these actions, as we said above, you have to start with power. If power is exercised fairly, with the rewards of society evenly disbursed, then the holders of power have little to fear. If the leaders have the trust of the people, they are unlikely to feel threatened. But when the divide in the nation between the haves and the have-nots gets wider and wider, when the poor get ever poorer and the nation’s leaders lose the trust of the led, then they will feel threatened. The life of easy privilege will be under threat. It is tempting in these circumstances to clamp down on the means of protest, to close off avenues of redress and to curb the means by which the ordinary person can assert their rights. Hence the spate of bills and the desire to end the HRA, the very means by which the ordinary person can assert their rights against the power of the state.
In addition to the power question, we have to look at some of the other doubtful reasoning behind this bill. In an earlier post we discussed the book written by Dominic Raab and two of his cabinet colleagues arguing for the end of the act. One element was the notion of liberty and it was this which enabled Britain to become a wealthy nation they argue. Laws and regulations have hampered this liberty and thus removed our ability to be properly wealthy. Get rid of these restrictions and we will regain our prosperity.
The argument overlooked slavery which provided the money for investment, imperial preference which stifled competition, and the terrible state that ordinary people lived in, the squalor, the slums, disease and malnutrition. Indeed, they, like many other people, have forgotten the ‘recruits crisis’ where losses in the Boor war at the end of the nineteenth century were hard to replace because the physical, malnourished and unhealthy state of volunteers was so poor.
The Bill of Rights, should it become law – together with the other legislation to limit protest, enhance the powers of the police and to limit judicial oversight – will be a backward step in the development of our society. It will shift yet more power to the government and its ministers. It will drastically reduce the power of the citizen to right wrongs. It is a retrograde step.
We and others will be working to oppose its passing.
For American readers, the Hillsborough disaster was a fatal crush of people during an FA Cup football (soccer) match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England, on 15 April 1989. With 96 fatalities and 766 injuries, it remains the worst disaster in British sporting history. Initially, the supporters were blamed but after decades of campaigning, using the HRA as we’ve said, police failings were eventually recognised.
June minutes
We are pleased to attach the minutes of our June meeting thanks to group member Lesley for preparing them. At 13 pages long they might seem overlong for minutes of a meeting which normally would run to a handful of pages. However, we do not produce a newsletter and many of the items are of interest to a wider public than just those attendees. The various bills being introduced by the government are of great concern and will curb dissent and criminalise various aspects of legitimate protest.
Amnesty in Salisbury & South Wiltshire 