Tag: Keir Starmer

UN rapporteur sanctioned by the US


The UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese sanctioned and subject to death threats

April 2026

Francesca Albanese is the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories since 1967. She has documented the extreme violence meted out on the Palestinians by Israel settlers and the IDF and for her pains has been sanctioned by the US President Donald Trump as a ‘specially designated national’. She is the first UN to have received this designation which puts her alongside drug traffickers and dictators. This has had serious consequences for her including the seizure of her Washington apartment and not being able to use a credit card anywhere in the world because they are all processed by American firms. There was considerable lobbying for this to happen.

She has received this treatment because of her reporting on the extreme violence used against Palestinians by Israel and by calling their behaviour genocide.

We are currently witnessing the invasion of southern Lebanon and the demolition of many villages.

In the West Bank, settler violence in 2026 so far, has displaced more Palestinians than in the whole of 2025. Around 1,000 have been killed since 2023 a quarter of whom were children. This is part of a pattern of violent displacement, demolition, evictions and crippling movement and access restrictions. The UN reports that ‘Israeli authorities directed, participated in or enabled settler violence’.

Albanese was interviewed recently in a Guardian piece and expands on her role and the politicians around the world who have been complicit in the violence. She has little time for Sir Keir Starmer and the aid and cover he has given Israel describing him as a ‘monster’ for arguing in 2023 that Israel ‘has the right’ to cut off electricity and gas to Gaza. “You’re not a human rights person at all” she says “if you say such a monstrosity. And the university who gave you your law degree should take it away from you.” [In the subsequent furore Sir Keir claimed he was “questioned by members” and he “made it clear it is not and has never been my view that Israel had the right to cut off water, food, fuel or medicines. International law must be followed.”]

Exceptionally ruthless physical and psychological abuse

This March, the UN published its latest report on the treatment and torture of hundreds of Palestinians and an extract says:

“In custody, Palestinian captives have been subjected to exceptionally ruthless physical and psychological abuse, on a scale and with an intensity without precedent in the history of Palestine/Israel. Brutal beatings, sexual violence, rape, lethal mistreatment, starvation and the systematic deprivation of the most basic human conditions have inflicted profound and lasting scars on the bodies and minds of tens of thousands of Palestinians and their loved ones. These practices demonstrate that the detention system of Israel has descended into a regime of systemic and widespread humiliation, coercion, and terror, aimed at stripping Palestinians not only of their liberty but of their dignity, identity and even the most basic sense of humanity. Far from isolated excesses, such conduct has been institutionalized within detention structures, politically endorsed by Israeli authorities and publicly justified, or even celebrated, by segments of society”. [para 84]

A report by UN Watch repudiates all of Albanese’s conclusions. The organisation is affiliated to the American Jewish Committee.

Peace of any kind seems a long way off in the region. The bombing and assassinations in Iran, the massive death toll in Gaza, increasing violence in the West Bank and now the invasion of southern Lebanon seems to show a pattern of violence as a kind of first port of call for the nation. Assisted by the US they are immensely powerful militarily and seem to have no real wish to compromise and certainly not recognise a Palestinian state. The tragedy is that it will not bring them the security they so desperately desire. A new generation of people with hatred towards Israel is in the making and will come to haunt them in years to come.

The treatment of Albanese is wholly unjustified and vindictive. Her reports can be criticised and errors pointed out in the normal way. But the death threats to her and her family, the seizing of her apartment and other coercive measures are wholly unacceptable.

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Will we withdraw from the European Convention?


Increasing number of politicians wanting the UK to leave the human rights convention

October 2025

There is almost a chorus now of politicians saying we must leave the European Convention of Human Rights. The latest politician is Robert Jenrick MP (pictured) who in a speech ahead of the Conservative party conference next week, is proposing that all prospective candidates must promise to support leaving the ECHR as a condition of their candidacy. He claims ‘the party will die’ if they do not leave. He claims that the Convention has ‘stymied the removal of dozens of terrorists’. The party leader, Kemi Badenoch does not agree with this policy. However, while preparing this post Kemi Badenoch announced that her party will aim to leave.

Policy Exchange a prominent think tank claims that ‘ECHR distorts parliamentary democracy, disables good government, and departs from the ideal of the rule of law’. PX is regarded as the least transparent of the think tanks and its funding is obscure. It has pursued a programme over many years to weaken the judiciary.

The desire to leave the ECHR has come to the fore recently because of the small boats crossings which still represent a crisis for the government with record crossings. The former justice minister Lord Faulkner is quoted as saying it is ‘inhibiting government’s freedom to what is regarded by many as the emergency of illegal migration’.

Recently, Nigel Farage the leader of Reform has said we must leave ‘no ifs, not buts’.

So leaving the ECHR is essential according to these politicians if we want to solve the small boats ’emergency’. The questions are therefore will it, and what will be its effects on our rights more generally?

The debate around the European Convention is replete with exaggerations and misinformation. The chicken nugget story – widely repeated by many politicians and elements of the press is the latest. A boy could not be deported because of his aversion to chicken nuggets it was claimed. Except it never happened. There was no ruling that the foreign offender should be allowed to stay in Britain because his child could not eat these nuggets. An immigration tribunal did initially decide that it would be “unduly harsh” for the boy to be sent to Albania because of his special educational needs, but this judgment was later overturned. A more senior judge rejected the man’s appeal and made absolutely clear that an aversion to chicken nuggets should never be enough to prevent deportation.

Implications
  1. We would not just be able to leave as it would require a decision in parliament. This could take some months and the House of Lords would object to many of the details.
  2. The ECHR is not the only relevant piece of legislation: the Refugee convention also has implications for the UK.
  3. It will create problems with international relations. Since the UK was a prime mover under Sir Winston Churchill and the UK drafted a lot of the text, if we left it could lead to others deciding to do the same. We would join Belarus and Russia outside the Convention – hardly a good advertisement for the UK. It would seriously weaken the ‘voice’ the nation has on the subject of human rights.
  4. The Trade and Cooperation Agreement with the EU could be threatened.
  5. There would be immense problems with the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland.

The focus of the current debate has been on immigration and the boat crossings. This is a side show and a distraction. The ECHR is much more than that and involves fundamental issues concerning our rights as citizens and our relationships with state power. It is no accident that right-wing tanks like the Policy Exchange, and others based in Tufton Street, want us to leave because it inhibits the power and influence of their corporate backers. Human rights are nuisance for them and using the boat crossings is a useful cover to get us to leave. It is small wonder that they do not reveal who funds them.

Our parliament is little better. Recent legislation introduced by the Conservatives has seriously impeded the right to protest and there is little sign of the Labour government repealing those acts. Sir Keir Starmer drew a distinction between someone being deported where there was a risk of execution and sending them to a country with a different level of healthcare or prison conditions. Although he did not mention in his speech the ECHR it was clear that was what he was referring to. It was a less than full throated support.

We thus have sections of the media and political parties, the first pushing exaggerated or even made up stories about the harm the HRA does and second, an increasing number of politicians falling over themselves – in a kind of game of leapfrog – claiming they will leave or amend the ECHR. They claim or infer that by leaving the ECHR, it will enable them to solve the problem of the crossings. They dishonestly do not explain to the public the problems, risks and harms to UK’s interests with their proposed actions.

The HRA, which celebrates its 25th anniversary today, has brought immense benefits to many people in this country. Yet few politicians seem willing or brave enough sing its praises. Courting popularity, they have joined the siren voices of the secretive think tanks and oligarchs who own most of our media, in calling for its abolition (or review without ever spelling out what that means exactly).

Sources: Daily Express, Sky News, The Guardian, BBC, Euro news

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