Tag: Salisbury

British Bill of Rights


Liz Truss announces that the British Bill of Rights is back on the agenda

The new Lord Chancellor, Liz Truss, said in an interview that the abolition of the Human rights Act and its replacement with the British Bill of Rights is back on the agenda.  On the 10 August, The Times had suggested that it was not going forward.  As we speculated on this blog a while ago, the sheer amount of work needed to negotiate new trade agreements with the world and our exit from the EU, is going to consume parliamentary effort and ministerial time on an enormous scale.  Will they have time and energy to spend time haggling with the Lords over a new bill with all the rest that is going on?  Then there are the complex relations with Scotland and Northern Ireland to consider.  This pledge has been around for 10 years now yet Liz Truss gives no timetable.

We are committed to [abolishing the Human Rights Act]. It is a manifesto pledge. We are looking very closely at the details but we have a manifesto pledge to deliver that   Liz Truss

Liz Truss – picture gov.uk

The result will at best be a modest change in the law unless we are going to withdraw from the European Court itself.  This will have widespread effects especially in eastern Europe where the Court’s activities has had a positive effect on human rights.

The shame of it is that the public anger about the ‘terrorist’s charter’ and other nonsenses are fostered by the media and few of our MPs and Ministers seem to have the courage to stand up to them.  The Daily Mail, the Sun and the Daily Express are often loud in their criticisms but connection to actual facts is often weak.  But even periodicals like the Spectator – a venerable political weekly – is not above publishing tendentious material.  The hostility to the act is in part we argue, due to the privacy clauses which give some protection to those who have suffered press intrusion for no good reason other than boosting newspaper sales.

Abu Qatada is frequently produced as evidence that the act doesn’t work and meant, allegedly, that we were not able to deport him.  Firstly, if he was such a terrible man, why was he not arrested and prosecuted here?  Secondly, the failure of the Home Office and the then Home Secretary Theresa May to deport him was not the HRA but treaties we have which prevent us returning people to countries where torture is routine (as well as the HRA).  Qatada would not have had a fair trial in Jordan because, at the time torture, was common there.

We often read that duties and responsibilities are to be added as there are many – not just on the Conservative back benches – who are unhappy with ‘rights’ and feel that such rights should only be available to those who act responsibility.  How this would work is not explained.  Who’s to judge what ‘responsible’ means?  A police officer at the time of arrest feels that the person behaved irresponsibly and therefore decides not to allow the person access to a lawyer – a provision in the HRA?  Some rights are absolute and do not depend on good behaviour.  Other rights are qualified anyway.

It is hard not to see a parallel with the Brexit debate.  Years were spend denigrating the EU and then when it mattered, those like the previous prime minister, David Cameron, wanted to persuade country to Remain, he lacked conviction.  He was hoist by his own petard, or more colloquially, ‘stuffed’.

A concerted campaign has been waged by the media against the act and stories produced which only occasionally have any relation to the truth.  We have suggested before to refer to Rights Info to get the background and a sober assessment of some of the fictions.

Whether the BBoR ever sees the light of day remains to be seen.  It is likely that this is a rash statement by the new Lord Chancellor which may quietly drift into the background when the difficulties and disadvantages are explained.  But it will continue to lurk until a sufficient number of MPs – like those in the Runnymede group – stand up and speak positively about the act and the benefits it has brought to thousands of ordinary citizens who have used it to secure basic rights, stories that rarely find their way into print.

Salisbury MP, John Glen is among those who have publicly called for the act to be abolished.

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Sources: The National; The Times; http://www.parliament.co.uk; Spectator; Daily Express

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Yemen war


 The war in Yemen (again)

UPDATE: 21 August

Full page article in the Observer newspaper on the subject of arms sales to Yemen.

In many previous posts we have drawn attention to the war in Yemen which receives far less coverage than events in Syria.  In particular, we have drawn attention to the role of the UK government in supporting the Saudis with weapons, political cover and providing – quite shamefully – British service personnel to advise them on the military activities.  We wrote last year to our local MP John Glen who replied with a bland letter from a Foreign Office minister, Tobias Ellwood which began to unwind in the following weeks.

We have also highlighted the role of British arms suppliers and the many billions of pounds of weaponry which has gone to the Saudis to enable them to continue the bombing campaign in Yemen.  Bombing has been indiscriminate and hospitals; mosques; weddings and schools have been targeted.

The FCO has now admitted that its responses have been less than honest in a statement slipped out on the last day of parliament.  The claim that human rights law was not being breached is now no longer claimed only that they were not being assessed.

Picture: Middle East online

So our involvement in the Yemen conflict has been shameful in the extreme and the fact that Britain is profiting from it as well only makes matters worse.  The government has been lucky in the world has been distracted by Syria and Yemen only appears in the news now and again with little sign of media traction.

A leader article in the Guardian on 18 August, set out again many of the points it and others have been making over the last year or so.  It points out that we have licensed £3.3bn (yes that’s BILLION) of weapon sales to Saudi over the past year alone according to the Campaign Against the Arms Trade.  The cost to the Yemenis has been immense with 6,500 dead and 2.5 million displaced.  Save the Children point out that one in three of under-fives suffers malnutrition.  The World Bank; UN and EU agencies estimate £14bn of damage to the economy.  And so on and so on.  We and the US are the main culprits in terms of support and arms sales yet there is no sign of an end to the conflict.  The Saudis are apparently pretty hopeless in their bombing activities despite the help they get from our service personnel.

But – there is a glimmer of good news with CAAT winning the right to a judicial review of arms sales to Saudi Arabia.  The government has resisted this naturally enough but CAAT has won through.

The UK government – with the USA – has helped support terrible humanitarian and economic damage on this country.  It has behaved less than honestly.  When and if the conflict ends there will be need to carry out massive reconstruction.  Once again we have been involved in destabilising a country with little thought to the aftermath.  Parliamentary scrutiny has been lamentable.

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Death penalty report- August


No to the death penaltyWe attach the latest monthly death penalty report with thanks to group member Lesley for compiling it.  A fairly full report with a big section on Turkey which is contemplating reintroducing the death penalty following the recent failed coup.

August report (pdf)

 

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Liam Fox and Azerbaijan


Minister’s close association with this dreadful state

Azerbaijan is ruled by a dictator Ilham Aliyev and is renowned for being a brutal state where torture is common and human rights flagrantly abused.  In the words of Human Rights Watch:

Azerbaijan’s government has escalated repression against its critics, marking a dramatic deterioration in an already poor rights record. In recent years , dozens of human rights defenders, political and civil activists, journalists, and bloggers have been arrested or imprisoned on politically motivated charges, prompting others to flee the country or go into hiding. Bank accounts of independent civic groups and their leaders have been frozen, impeding their work, or in some cases forcing them to shut down entirely. New legal regulations make it almost impossible for independent groups to get foreign funding. While criticizing the increasing crackdown, Azerbaijan’s international partners have failed to secure rights improvements.

The problem is that the country is rich in oil and so there is a rush by western and other governments to secure contracts.  Hundreds of millions of dollars of the country’s wealth sit in overseas bank accounts controlled by the Aliyev family and they like owning large amounts of real estate in London as well.  (Daily Mail 21 December 2012)

Where oil and money are concerned of course, it is too much for western countries including the UK, to concern themselves with human rights especially as we know that the emphasis now is on trade.  Prince Andrew is a regular visitor to the country and Tony Blair was paid £90, 000 for a twenty minute speech.  They have been using ‘sports wash’ to improve their image and hosted the recent Formula 1 race.

Image result for dr liam foxAnother visitor is the Secretary of State for International Trade, the disgraced MP, Dr Liam Fox pictured left (Bing images).  In the words of the New Statesman, ‘he is in the most literal sense, shameless and should never hold high office again.’ (23 December 2016)  He was sacked for breaking the ministerial code.

According to the Observer (7 August 2016) he has been paid £5,700 for the right to translate his book Rising Tides into Azerbaijani.  He was paid a further £3, 500 or so to fly out there to promote it. Few read the book in English and no other country has translated it.  One passage from the book, referring to Burma, is interesting:

[…] freedom from fear and freedom of expression, including a free press and broadcast media and the right to dissent within the law. It requires an inclusive political solution that addresses the underlying causes of the conflict and takes into account the legitimate grievances and aspirations of all the people of a land. Until the rights, identities and hopes of all …, whatever their ethnic origins or religion, are treated as equal, peace and reconciliation will not be achieved.”

The reviewer of the Conservative Home site remarks:

A clear thread throughout the entire book is Fox’s emphasis on the values of liberty, democracy and human rights, and he makes a compelling case. He is not blindly idealistic, or reliant solely on the moral virtues of the argument – rather, he makes the case in terms of self-interest

It seems extraordinary that with these sentiments Dr Fox should consort with, and take money from, such a vile regime, beyond the needs of diplomacy.  It fits with a government reluctant to tackle abuses in Saudi Arabia for example as we have commented frequently before.  Final word to the Observer:

Dr Fox is a man for our debased times because his record with Azerbaijan shows the international trade secretary would not want to raise [human rights concerns] even if he could.  Our future is not going to be proud and independent, but grubby and murky and filled with bad deals with worse governments; a future, in short, where the foxes rule the henhouse.

 

 

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Foreign Office retracts statements


War in Yemen

For most of this year we have been commenting on the war in Yemen and the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia.  We wrote to the Salisbury MP John Glen, who replied enclosing a bland statement from the Foreign Office Minister, Tobias Ellwood.  We have noted the government’s activities in getting the Saudi’s onto the UN’s Human Rights Council and the continued supply of arms to the Saudis despite their use in Yemen on civilian targets, schools and medical facilities.  We have also noted the steady softening of policies to make it easier – it is believed – for arms companies to ply their trade.  The Telegraph reported in an article in February, the difference between Syria and Yemen.  In the former country, bombing of a MSF hospital led to outrage by press and politicians in the UK:  by contrast, bombing of MSF hospitals in Yemen is greeted by a deafening silence :

Alas, this is not merely about Western indifference but about complicity and collusion. Last October, Britain and the US successfully blocked plans for a UN independent investigation into potential war crimes committed by Saudi Arabia in Yemen. This was a unique opportunity to hold all sides of the conflict accountable for their actions. Instead, Saudi Arabia has been allowed to investigate itself through its own internal commission.  (24 Feb 2016)

Then, on Thursday 21st July when parliament rose, there was a curious statement issued by the FCO.  It has been forced to retract numerous written and oral statements to parliament which said ministers had assessed that Saudi Arabia was not in breach of international humanitarian law in Yemen.

The admission led to calls by the Liberal Democrats for an investigation into Saudi behaviour in Yemen and a suspension of UK arms sales.  The Liberal Democrats have repeatedly claimed that the Saudi military campaign has targeted civilians.  We also drew attention in a previous blog to the presence of British service personnel in Saudi control rooms.  The Foreign Office said the incorrect statements – made by three different ministers, some as far back as six months ago – were errors and did not represent an attempt to mislead MPs over its assessment of the Saudi campaign.

It stressed that other written answers had made clear that the UK government had made no assessment of whether the Saudis were in breach of humanitarian law.

The last day of parliament is a favourite time to slip out inconvenient statements since there is no time for questions or debate to take place.  The FCO simply said it had been reviewing the correspondence.

The government is facing a court case arguing that it should ban arms sales to Saudi Arabia.  The Guardian newspaper said:

In its written answer published on Thursday, the Foreign Office said written answers in February 2016 had stated: “We have assessed that there has not been a breach of IHL (international humanitarian law) by the coalition.” The correction said these should have stated: “We have not assessed that there has been a breach of IHL by the coalition.”

The Foreign Office also corrected a written answer by the then foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, who stated on 4 January 2016: “I regularly review the situation with my own advisers and have discussed it on numerous occasions with my Saudi counterpart. Our judgment is that there is no evidence that IHL has been breached, but we shall continue to review the situation regularly.”

This is something of a volt face and to issue such a statement on the last day of parliament is shameful.  It achieved its object however with next to no media coverage.  Why does it matter?  We are currently suffering a severe threat from ISIS with a recent outrage in Nice said to be inspired by the group.  Saudi Arabia’s activities in Yemen, supported by US and UK weapons, personnel and political cover, provide an ideal recruiting ground for this terrorist group.  At present all eyes are on Syria but how long will it be before our activities in Yemen come under the spotlight?

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July meeting minutes


The minutes of the July meeting are available here thanks to group member Lesley for preparing them.  A full meeting in which we discussed the death penalty report; the results of the stall; the film at the Arts Centre; social media statistics; the meeting at the Cathedral and the BBQ in August.  We also discussed the letter sent to John Glen about the Maldives (reply awaited).

July minutes (pdf)

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Maldives: use of death penalty


UPDATE 23 JULY

The following letter has been sent to John Glen MP concerning the imminent use of the death penalty in the Maldives.  Mr Glen has spoken and written often about the human rights situation there.

[…] You may remember that, when you came to speak to our Group about Human
Rights, you told us of your particular interest and involvement in the issues
around Human Rights in the Maldives.
I am sure, therefore, you will have been concerned, as was our Group, to read
of the Maldives Government’s confirmation of the sentencing to death of a
young man found guilty of the killing in 2012 of a lawmaker. I understand that,
days before this ruling, the Government had amended the rules to allow
execution by lethal injection or hanging. This would bring the Country’s
decades-long moratorium on capital punishment to an end.
I would be grateful if you could let me know whether our Government will be
making any intervention in this man’s case, and expressing their concerns at
this change of policy. You will also, I am sure, be aware that the decision is
controversial, and has resulted in the resignation of the Country’s Foreign
Minister, Dunya Maumoon. We would like to ask whether you would be able
to use your influence with any of the Government contacts you will have made
in the course of your work in relation to the Maldives to support the
commuting of this man’s death sentence to a term of imprisonment, and a
reversal of the new policy.
[…]
[UPDATE]
Mr Glen has replied:
[..] I do remain closed involved with monitoring the situation in Maldives and I believer that there are number of issues there give give cause for grave concern.
You may have seen reports about the recent return to Salisbury of Anni Nasheed, the democratically elected president of the Maldives, who has recently been imprisoned in his home country on entirely spurious grounds.  I am pleased that I was able to see him while he was here and bring myself up to date with the latest developments.
As you will know, the UK opposes the death penalty in all circumstances as a matter of principle and the government continues to call on all countries around the world that use the death penalty to cease its use.
As you say, this apparent selective reintroduction of the death penalty is deeply worrying.  A group of colleagues and I are committed to keeping the Maldives in forefront of the minds of Foreign Office ministers and I will certainly ensure that specific pressure has been brought to bear around this case.
[…]
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Why do they hate the Human Rights Act?


Act is likely to be doomed whoever is Prime Minister

June, 2016

Both the leading contenders to become the new Prime Minister, Boris Johnson [UPDATE: 30/06 Johnson rules himself out.  Michael Gove is standing]  and Theresa May, are committed to getting rid of the Human Rights Act [HRA] and want to introduce a British Bill of Rights [BBoR].  It is also true of Salisbury’s MP, John Glen who has written to that effect in the Salisbury Journal.  The commitment was in the Conservative party’s manifesto in last years general election.  This is yet to see the light of day and how it will differ from the existing act has still to be made clear.  We have suggested that the only thing which may stop this happening is that considerable time will now be needed to negotiate our exit from the EU; negotiate new trading arrangements with the EU and the rest of the world, together with a mass of budgetary issues once we no longer are in receipt of EU regional, sectoral and other funds.  Whether there will be time for a long battle with the Lords over the HRA is in doubt.

Perhaps now is timely to ask why is it that the HRA has become almost a dirty word and why the media in particular has waged a relentless campaign against the act and against the EU itself, culminating in the Brexit vote last week.  Part of the answer is in that last sentence: the HRA is the embodiment in British law of the European Convention on Human Rights and as such is tainted by its association with Europe generally.  But that is not the whole answer because it would be possible to be against the EU for economic reasons – slow growth, high unemployment and low investment for example – but still be in favour of the act.

RightsInfo in a recent post has argued that we need to learn 5 lessons from all this and argues for a changed approach to countering the inbuilt media bias against the EU project and the ECHR.  While this is true it is nevertheless important to understand where this bias comes from.  Why is a large section of the media (roughly 70%) so viscerally against the act and dedicated to writing misleading or plain wrong stories about Brussels and Strasbourg?  Unless we can gain an understanding of this then efforts to counter it and change minds are probably doomed.

Loss of Britishness

The first reason may be the sense that we have lost a sense of Britishness acquired over the last eight hundred years, especially as far as the law is concerned.  This was very evident during the Magna Carta celebrations last year.  There was this sense of 800 years of seamless progress culminating in the corpus of law we now have.  Then along came Europe and imposed a new law upon us which had wide ranging implications for all our law in the UK.  It said that human rights had to be respected and for some this came hard.  Despite the fact it was Churchill who pushed for the European Convention and our support for the UN Declaration of Human Rights in which we played – at times reluctant – part, the ECHR was seen as an intrusion into our affairs.  We simply did not need it and there was resistance to its application in the UK.

Magna Carta was about the release of power by the king to his barons.  Much of subsequent legal history has been about the steady release of power by those elites who hold it to the ordinary people.  As industrialisation gradually took hold in the nineteenth century for example, there were prolonged battles to obstruct and delay public health reforms; improved safety in factories; better housing, and for ordinary people to be educated.  The HRA turns this approach on its head and says that there are basic rights that everyone should have.  It also gives people the chance to challenge, using the legal process, those in power.  It comes as no surprise therefore that those who have the power are miffed at its loss or at least diminution.

One can also detect a kind of arrogance.  We won the war and helped put in place a set of rules for them (the Europeans) to live by.  We didn’t need them because we have this ancient and trusted system.  When we started allowing appeals to Strasbourg it came as something of a shock when rulings started to go against us.  Suddenly, this superb system didn’t seem so wonderful after all.  Ordinary people spoke and something of a shiver went through the political elite.

Gift to the world

Linked to this is that the British system is now used around the world principally by countries that used to be colonies.  From the USA to New Zealand,  much of Africa and the subcontinent, the system of justice is based on what was developed here.  Europe on the other hand has a different legal system and does not (with a few exceptions) have a corpus of common law.  It is difficult in these circumstances for some people not to feel that Europe is a ‘Johnny come lately’ to the legal scene so why should they tell us what to do?  After all, fascism was rife in Europe so who are they to lecture us on human rights?

The media and neo-liberalism

One of the strangest paradoxes of the EU debate and the passions the referendum unleashed is that our close links to the USA are almost never mentioned.  Yet the effect of the USA and its major corporations have arguably as equal an effect on life in the UK as do the machinations of Brussels.  We have witnessed major tax dodging by US corporations such as Google, Amazon, Starbucks et al amounting almost to plunder.  Starbucks graciously agreed to pay a voluntary amount and Google a trifling sum.  Europe has shown itself to be keener and tougher in its approach to taxing these behemoths.

Throughout the whole debate following the Snowden revelations, it was the linkage between the American spy agency NSA and GCHQ which was a significant fact.  NSA used GCHQ to hoover up information on US citizens which, under their Constitution, they were not allowed to do.  Both were engaged in mass surveillance largely uncontrolled by our politicians who were – on this side of the pond at least – asleep at the wheel.

A large chunk of our media is owned by Americans, most particularly the Murdoch family.  This was allowed to happen to help Mrs Thatcher gain power.  The important point however is that these proprietors are keen believers in the Neocon agenda.  For them good government is small government.  They still believe in the merits of unfettered free markets.  The emphasis on the social chapter in Europe is not something they are at all keen on.  Power is also important and as we saw during the Leveson hearings, they were used to slipping in and out of the back door of Downing Street for surreptitious and unminuted meetings with the Prime Minister of the day.  Europe makes all this harder.  Instead of a ‘quiet word’ with the PM, there are 27 other countries to deal with.

American power is therefore widely felt and in many areas has greater influence than anything coming out of Brussels.  Yet it is Europe and Europe alone which fills the media and the airwaves.  There is thus an inbuilt bias in the reporting of Europe and American power almost never gets a mention.  It wasn’t Europe which took us into the Iraq or Afghan wars.

Media and privacy

Still on the media but taking in the tabloids in particular, is the issue of privacy.  The phone hacking story revealed many parts of the British media to be acting outside the law.  People’s phones and emails were hacked, bank accounts blagged and for some celebrities and politicians, they were almost unable to communicate with anyone without the risk of their message being intercepted.  The full story can be read in Nick Davies’s book Hack Attack [1].  Aspects of this was illegal but recourse to the police was largely a waste of time since the police themselves were selling information to the tabloids or were afraid to tackle the media with whom they had an unsavoury relationship.  It has been argued that the phone hacking scandal only saw the light of day because of the HRA [2].  Regulation into interception was introduced because the UK fell foul of the ECHR.

The print media were feeling the pinch however with falling advertising revenues, fewer people buying newspapers, preferring the internet to gain access to stories, and increasing costs.  Much easier therefore to hack into celebrities’ phones to get a juicy front page.  They were free to do this because there was no law of privacy.  The HRA does provide some privacy protection and this poses a threat to their business models.  So parts of the media have a problem, both ideologically with its adherence to free market ideas and, its business model based on intrusion.  Europe is a threat to both these aspects, especially the latter from the HRA.

Thirdly is the concept of freedom and responsibility.  To be able to reach millions of people either in print or online is a huge responsibility, a responsibility to give as balanced a view as possible to impart the key facts.  Freedom of speech is a precious thing but it does also come with some responsibilities.

To end this section it would be unfair to blame all the media’s woes on the media themselves.  They are there to sell papers and, as with all forms of marketing, it is based on the principal of giving people what they want.  Clearly, they have picked up a mood or anti-Europeanism and they have provided the stories to match.  One can argue that they have failed to provide a balanced view.  They, however, might argue that the Independent newspaper was balanced, but is now only available on-line and the only other paper trying to give an even handed view is the Guardian which sells only a derisory number of copies.  If the public were interested in balance and wanted to read the benefits of EU membership they can do so.  They don’t.  The tabloids can fairly argue that they reflect the public’s view.  People buy their papers by the million, not the ones with balanced views. The Daily Mail has the world’s biggest on-line readership.

Politicians

Which brings us to the final point.  Against the tide of misinformation and negative stories about the HRA and Europe generally most of our politicians have either joined in or remained silent.  A few Lib Dems were proponents but they were reduced to a rump at the last election and are now scarcely a political force.  Whereas Ukip and Nigel Farage are rarely out of the news, the Lib Dems have all but disappeared off it.  Saying positive things about Europe to try and keep Britain within the EU came late to many of our politicians during the Referendum campaign and resulted in them not being believed anyway.  Anthony Lester refers to the ‘love-hate relationship’ between politicians and journalists in his book Five Ideas to Fight For  [3].

They are mutually dependent and yet proclaim their independence, each side claiming to represent the public interest better than the other.  (p159)

The media and politicians are both part of what has been termed the ‘Establishment’.  In his book The Establishment and how they get away with it [4] Owen Jones attempts a definition:

Today’s Establishment is made up – as it always has been – of powerful groups that need to protect their position in a democracy in which almost the entire adult population has the right to vote.  The Establishment represents an attempt on behalf of these groups to ‘manage’ democracy, to make sure it does not threaten their own interests.  (p4)

In a chapter entitled ‘Mediaocracy’ he describes how the media plays a role within this Establishment by focusing people’s ire on those at the bottom of society.  The success (if success be the right word) of this blame game could be seen in spades with the Brexit campaign and its focus on immigrants and Europe as the cause of many of our woes.  That immigrants contribute at least £2bn to the UK’s economy and are a mainstay of hospitals, the food industry, transport and much else is something you would not be aware of from much of the media.

It can be seen that the dislike of the HRA is the result of several forces.  The shift in power away from the elites and the provision ordinary people with rights is resented especially by those who have sense of being born to rule.  A right to privacy threatens those parts of the media whose business model depends on the wholesale intrusion into the lives of celebrities, sportsmen and women, and politicians (but never you notice other media folk).  An arrogance concerning the age of our legal system and its alleged superiority to the continental one makes us reluctant to accept correction or a different perspective from across the channel.  A loss of power and influence by media proprietors of the political establishment is also a factor where Europe more generally is concerned.  All these forces come together to result in an assault on the act.   Very little good is allowed to be said of it but plenty which is bad – whether true or not – can.  The HRA enabled a light to be shone into the Establishment and what was revealed was murky.  Is it any wonder they are so keen to see it gone?

This is the backdrop to the likely demise of the HRA.  And it seems little can be done to halt the process.  Good news stories rarely get into the media and are unlikely to be believed anyway.

Sources:

[1] Hack Attack, How the Truth Caught up with Rupert Murdoch, 2014, Nick Davies, Chatto & Windus

[2] A Magna Carta for all Humanity, 2015, Frances Klug, Routledge

[3] Five Ideas to Fight For, 2016, Anthony Lester, Oneworld

[4] The Establishment, and how the get away with it, 2014, Owen Jones, Allen Lane

On Liberty, 2015, Shami Chakrabarti, Penguin

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5

What happens now?


The country (UK) has decided to leave the EU: so what next?

In the early hours of yesterday morning, the referendum was concluded and the country decided to leave the EU on a high turnout.  The Prime Minister is to resign and there may be an election by Christmas.

One of the key issues that decided the referendum was the question of immigration and the other was sovereignty.  While those politicians who were in favour of remaining in the EU, went on about the economy, security, jobs and so forth, it was obvious from interviews in the street (vox pops) that very many people were concerned about more basic matters.  As far as many of them were concerned, they were suffering from the effects of austerity and the people who were making matters worse were the immigrants.  They were ‘flooding’ into the country and were putting a strain on public services and bidding down wages (it was claimed) thus making their own lives a misery.  Membership of the EU made matters worse as we were unable to stem the tide because of their rules.  Coming out was clearly a solution to their woes.

Sovereignty also reared its head from time to time and a familiar line was taking back our sovereignty so that we can make our own laws and run our own affairs, free from interference by Brussels bureaucrats and unelected judges in Strasbourg.  The election of our own judges is something that must have passed us all by.

So what of the Human Rights Act?  The Conservative’s manifesto made clear their desire to scrap it and replace it with a British Bill of Rights.  Months have gone by since the election and no sign has been seen of this document.

But if anything is clear from yesterday’s events, it is that hatred of the EU and its alleged interference in our affairs – including our legal affairs – is very strong and was one of the deciding factors which enabled the Brexiters to win the referendum.  This has been whipped up by a right-wing press and not a little xenophobia.

The problem now for the new government – expected at the time of writing to be formed by Boris Johnson – is that they just cannot leave the BBoR to one side in view of the fervour generated and promises they have made to the electorate.  But, the EU will be wanting a speedy departure by the UK from the EU, and not on painless terms either, to prevent contagion spreading to other disaffected countries.  So considerable time will need to be spent by thousands of civil servants negotiating new terms, agreements and treaties to enable our new relationship with the EU to continue.  Enormous parliamentary time will be needed as well.  The question is therefore – will there be the time or energy for this battle?  Getting a diminished set of rules through the Lords will not be easy.

It is a great pity that so many politicians have allowed the untruths and exaggerations by the right-wing media to gain such traction and to go unanswered.  Many believe that all red tape and rulings from Brussels are automatically bad news and diminish our lives.  We would be so much better off without them they say.  The word ‘free’ is used a lot: free of such rules, free to trade where we will, free to rule our lives and free of encumbrances generally.   The HRA has been a lifeline for many, many people in the UK.  They have used it to secure redress against arbitrary decisions which affect their lives.  Public authorities have to be cognisant of the act in their policy making.  Is all this to go?

We may ask the question ‘free for whom?’  Axing the HRA will not provide ordinary people with more freedom, but less.

So whether we will see the end of the HRA remains to be seen.

 

1

Brexit and human rights


Human rights will be diminished if we leave Europe

Human rights have not directly figured much in the vexed debate about whether to remain or leave the European Union.  The arguments seem to have settled on immigration, which has become a toxic topic, with the Brexiters claiming that a leave vote will enable us to regain control of our borders.  The Conservative government has promised to repeal the Human Rights Act but progress has been slow so far.  Reporting on the many issues has been poor with the main focus on the scrapping between the Tory party factions rather than on a measured debate.

The crucial question on how our rights will be affected after a vote to leave – if that should happen on Friday – has received little coverage.  Partly this is because of the complexity of the subject and also detailed discussions of legal judgements does not make for racy copy.  As ever, Rights Info has done an excellent job of discussing the issues with a link through to the Independent newspaper (now only online) which has also done a detailed analysis.

Despite its faults, the European Convention, which in turn led to the Human Rights Act, has been of considerable benefit to ordinary people.  For many this will come as a surprise and for readers of the right wing press in the UK, a statement at variance to the facts as they know them.  And this has been a large part of the problem: a deliberate and sustained attack on the act which has included misreporting, non-reporting and the running of scare stories many of which have no foundation in fact.  For readers of the Daily Mail in particular but also the Sun, the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Express, they are treated to lurid stories of terrorists going free, criminals living the high-life in prison and murderers demanding pornography as their ‘human right’ (they didn’t).

Why the right wing media should be so hostile to the act (as opposed to airing proper criticism of it) is discussed by Francesca Klug in her book A Magna Carta for all Humanity (Routledge, 2015).

As the late, great former Lord Chief Justice Lord Bingham put it: there is ‘inherent in the whole of the ECHR … a search for balance between the rights of the individual and the rights of the wider society.’  For the press to mention this inherent approach would not only spoil a good story, it could draw attention to an inconvenient truth: that Article 10 ECHR, the right to free expression, explicitly states that free speech comes with ‘duties and responsibilities’.  This is not a very popular statement with many journalists.  But, I suppose – with notable exceptions – the press is hardly alone in thinking that responsibilities apply to everyone but themselves.  (p265)

She goes on to explain that there was little legal remedy against press intrusion before the act was passed.  Common law provided no real protection.  An example was Gordon Kaye, the star of the TV series Allo, Allo who was recovering in hospital after a car accident.  Two Sunday Sport journalists entered his hospital room and interviewed and photographed him.  In view of his medical state it is unlikely he knew what was happening.  Under existing English law he had no redress.

Brexiters like to portray English law as some kind of noble construct which has been diminished by Europe and that by leaving, we will be able to get rid of all this interference by ‘unelected European judges’ and get back to the way we were.  Europe is presented in purely negative terms and acting to diminish our rights.  British law is indeed a fine system in many respects, but without the HRA we would never have had the investigation into the activities of the press and phone hacking; no Leveson enquiry and the Murdochs (father and son) being asked to come before a select committee.

The benefits of the act to ordinary people in their struggles for justice against the police or public authorities are seldom mentioned.  The use by the media themselves to defend their sources or to prevent unjust interference by the police or security services is likewise rarely mentioned.  The rights ordinary people enjoy have almost in every case been achieved after a struggle and the current government is keen to erode these rights still further.  Access to the courts and the availability of legal aid has been seriously curtailed; further legislation to diminish the – already limited – rights of trades unions is planned, and the Snooper’s Charter is well on its way to becoming law.

The idea therefore that we will be better protected if we leave is not supported by the evidence.  If we leave Europe and the process begins to abolish the Human Rights Act (which our MP, Mr John Glen is keen to do) and other treaties, it will only result in diminished rights for the ordinary people of this country.

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