The Tory war on human rights will be raging across the tabloid press in the build up to the next general election. The Daily Mail and its partners in false news will be convincing voters that Britain is hostage to the European Convention on Human Rights and hope they fall for the deceit.
Conservative Home Secretary Suella Braverman and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak – Reuters
What is the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)? It its a protocol that provides a safety net for individuals, working people, trade unions and the marginalised – such as immigrants – through the European Court of Human Rights. It was created to protect people from their own governments.
The convention was launched in Rome on 4 November 1950 and came into force on 3 September 1953. The United Kingdom – under Conservative Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden – was the first signatory, followed by Ireland, Denmark, Sweden and, over time, every one of the 47 Council of Europe member states.
Only two countries have ever left the human rights treaty. Greece withdrew in 1969 following a military coup which abolished democracy; it was later reversed when the military was overturned. The second resignation came on 16 September 2022 when Mr Putin in the midst of bombing Ukraine decided he no longer wanted to be a slave to human rights.
In the footsteps of Putin and the Greek colonels, Rishi Sunak is considering new laws that will allow the government to deport people who reach our shores irregularly without recourse to the European courts or the right to apply for asylum – red meat for the Red Wall and Tory Right.
Rights Flight
The first deportation flight of asylum seekers to Rwanda ordered by Home Secretary Suella Braverman in June 2022 was halted after a last-minute intervention by the European Court of Human Rights. The administration in Kigali, the capital, were to receive between ‘£20,000 and £30,000 for each individual.‘
In spite of having breached security rules by sending classified documents to low ranking Tories not entitled to read them, Ms Braverman was brought back into the same job at the Home Office by Rishi Sunak when he was selected as Prime Minister. She announced on accepting the post that it was still her ‘dream’ and ‘obsession’ to see a flight of asylum seekers take off for Rwanda.
It is likely that no one mentioned that during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, more than 500,000 Tutsis were slaughtered by the majority Hutus in 100 days. According to the US State Department, the post-genocide government is responsible for grave violations of human rights including arbitrary detention and torture.
Ms Braverman described Rwanda as ‘a very nice place’ after a brief visit. If her dream to fly immigrants from Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq off to Central Africa is going to come true, quitting the European Convention on Human Rights will have to be a key promise in the next Tory manifesto.
Simon Clarke, the former cabinet minister, told the Guardian that it was ‘completely right’ to consider withdrawal. ‘It is a fundamental question of trust and competence that we should very significantly curb illegal immigration into the UK … Our human rights architecture is being abused by criminals to endanger the lives of desperate people.’
Brexit and Tory War on Human Rights
Nigel Farage
Brexit was largely won by the fear that Britain was going to be overrun by Turks about to join the EU, Syrian refugees in headscarves – the poster launched by Nigel Farage – and Boris Johnson’s catalogue of lies about funding and safeguarding the NHS.
It was never mentioned that immigrants were net contributors to the economy, that thousands of doctors and nurses from Europe worked in the NHS, or that new Brexit laws would only prevent Europeans from unlimited travel to the UK – as it would end unlimited movement, business and study opportunities for Brits in Europe.
It was kept well-hidden that migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East were not affected by Brexit laws and remained in the same legal predicament: apply for an entry visa or pay a smuggler and jump in a rubber dinghy.
Twenty points behind in the polls, Brexiteers Sunak, Braverman, Rees-Mogg and Co, in collusion with the billionaires with non-dom status who own the extremist press – the Daily Mail, Times, Telegraph etc – will use the same Brexit playbook to deceive voters into believing that by leaving the convention on human rights it will prevent black and brown people from crossing the Channel.
This is patently untrue. People who have risked their lives fleeing across the world from war, persecution and poverty to reach family, loved ones and a new beginning in Britain will not be put off by 20 miles of choppy seas and hastily made regulations.
The European Convention on Human Rights is not a tool to counter immigration, but an essential pillar of our democracy. It is an agreement to maintain security and good governance – both of which have vanished in Russia and for a decade have been on the decline in every category of well-being in the United Kingdom: health, education, life expectancy, infant mortality, functioning courts, fair wages, control of corporate violations.
The convention protects ordinary people from the State. It ensures that atrocities – such as the Holocaust – would never be repeated; it guarantees freedom from torture and slavery, and safeguards fundamental rights such as having a fair hearing in court. It gives every European the right of respect for private and family life, freedom of expression, freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
For working people, it provides the right to strike, demand fair wages, a minimum work week, binding contracts and the right of assembly such as trade union demonstrations and public marches – for example the million or more who marched against war in Iraq would now be kettled, beaten and arrested under new powers granted to the police.
The Tory war on human rights is a real and present danger. It is a battle Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman believe they can win, as winning the next general election is more important to them than the democratic rights signed by politicians after the Second World War to prevent the rebirth of fascism and guarantee people freedom of fear from their own government.
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Very worrying and where will this lead, because just getting rid of the ECHR will not be the end point.
Most people don’t fully realize what is about to happen and how it could impact their lives. We need big red buses driving around the country with Save Our Human Rights painted on the side.
So allowing thousands of young Albanian men to arrive unchecked is ok? Where are the families of these people? Legitimate refugees have legitimate ways of coming here, the people arriving on dinghies are not refugees, they are economic migrants and albanian criminals. Leftie champagne socialists like the author will never admit this fact and try and block deportations at every turn. I guess the illegals won’t be sent to your leafy suburbs, so you’re alright.
Not only will this sabotage the human rights of every man, woman and child in Britain, it won’t do anything about boats crossing the Channel.
It’s not intended to stop boats crossing the Channel, it’s intended to make their supporters outraged.
They can’t fight the next general election election on anything else, other than racism and a phony culture war.
They can’t defend their record on the NHS, the economy, living standards, crime, income, taxation, public services, defence, policing, council taxes, housing, rail services, pollution, or anything else you care to name.
They’ve been in power for 13 years and nothing is better than when they came to power, everything is worse. Nothing in our country works, because they broke it
The ghostwriter needs a proofreader i.e. ‘Daily Mail & it’s…’.
It is part of a growing trend and one that happens with any party that has been in power for a long time. The governments of such parties tend to think that being in power is their right and anything that restricts them fulfilling their promises is an obstruction to be removed.
This current government has taken this to greater extremes than before as is their wont. They talk about “the will of the people”, but are basically doing what their own political beliefs (and that of their more hard right followers) require of them.
Whether it is the EHCR, the UK judiciary, the legal profession, the Civil Service, Trade Unions, groups of people demonstrating or anyone who doesn’t believe in their hard right ideas, the current government only sees people trying to stop them doing what they want to do.
They must be removed from power as soon as possible!
To respond to the comment by Rob Dobalina, the key to a working immigration system, is that it can distinguish between people genuinely seeking asylum and those who are not wanted here such as economic migrants.
A working immigration system will provide ways people can apply to come here in their own country or another safer one. It will also have agreements with other countries on returning those that do meet meet the requirements.
It is a difficult issue and will get harder as the world changes. but we could do better.
There’s a section in Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons: A Play in Two Acts which seems extremely fitting here:
“William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!”
Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”
William Roper: “Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!”
Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!”
(or watch this section on https://youtu.be/PDBiLT3LASk?feature=shared )