I listened with great interest to the latest issue of Law Pod U.K., which never fails to demonstrate the great truth that intelligence, education and commonsense do not perfectly overlap.
This time around, the eminent guests were debating the U.K. Bill of Rights Bill, which is back on the legislative agenda after having been briefly shelved last year. The contents of the Bill aren’t particularly important for the purposes of this post; suffice to say that the idea is to repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 and, in essence, to shrink the influence of human rights on U.K. law in most areas, but chiefly when it comes to the topic of immigration and deportation.
Human rights advocates hate the idea of the Bill of Rights Bill. They hate it because it will disrupt their practice and make it more difficult; they hate it because they envisage themselves as part of a global constitutionalist project to construct what they often call a jus commune of international human rights norms and believe that repeal of the Human Rights Act 1998 would threaten their participation in it; and they hate it because they (probably justifiably) sense that it threatens some of their favourite causes – open borders and migration being one of them.
And, to give the devil his due, their arguments do have force in certain respects. While I have little sympathy with the global constitutional mindset that animates these people, my basic inclination is to look with suspicion on any attempt by a government to expand its scope of action in any regard – and, since the Bill of Rights Bill will likely have that effect, I am prepared to give sceptics a fair hearing.
But by God they make it difficult. Listening to the podcast, and also imbibing the general atmosphere in human rights circles, one hears all kinds of strong rhetoric about the threat the Bill poses to fundamental freedoms. According to the Law Society of England & Wales it will be a “lurch backwards for British justice“; the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights have said it will “create large scale uncertainty and seriously damage people’s ability to enforce their rights“; Shamim Ahmad of the Public Law Project even said on the podcast in question that talk of the U.K. withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights (which is being mooted alongside discussion of the Bill) would be like “crossing a Rubicon”. This kind of apocalyptic language is par for the course whenever the Bill of Rights Bill comes up.
Listening to all this, one has to ask oneself how it is that these people can be so naïve? Didn’t they get the memo in March 2020, when the Government was by decree making it a criminal offence to leave one’s home without reasonable excuse, that human rights basically don’t matter when the chips are down? Didn’t they hear that freedom of conscience, the right to liberty and the right to non-discrimination are irrelevant when it comes to the unvaccinated? Weren’t they informed that freedom of expression is contingent on speech not being ‘harmful’? Didn’t they discover during 2020-21 that basic freedoms go out of the window when the Government wants to ‘keep us all safe’?
What were the Law Society of England & Wales saying in March 2020? Er, blogging some ‘excellent tips’ for working from home. What was the Public Law Project up to? “Accepting the Government’s rationale” for the Coronavirus Bill 2020. What about the the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights? It was scrutinising the Government’s exercising of ‘unprecedented powers’ in order to ‘keep us safe’ (by… checks notes… quizzing Robert Buckland MP about things like the right to family life of mothers in prison, the rights of young people with autism, and the protection of privacy during contact tracing – all important issues no doubt, but pretty much the dictionary definition of tinkering around the edges). What was the U.K. Human Rights Blog, voice of the human rights lobby in this country, up to? Mouthing platitudes about “unprecedented times” and the “serious challenges to society” the pandemic posed. How about Law Pod U.K. itself? In between discussing the complexities of the Brexit transition period and something-something vicarious liability something-something, it was inviting a PhD candidate at the European University Institute in Florence to tell the listeners (prior to the announcement of the full U.K. lockdown) that “human rights law continues to apply” even during pandemics, so as to set “very minimum standards” such as protecting really vulnerable people, making sure there was no discrimination and making sure any measures were not in place indefinitely. Cheers for that, Law Pod.
These people, all no doubt highly intelligent and very learned, seem to know so little about human nature that a basic feature of it never occurred to them: if you want others to take your principles seriously, you have to defend them when they actually matter. Otherwise, society (usually correctly) concludes that they aren’t genuine principles at all, and you’re just referring to them when they suit you.
This is the position in which human rights advocates now find themselves. When the chips were down, their defence of our freedoms was to all practical purposes non-existent. Now they are asking ordinary people to care that the Government is apparently planning to water down domestic human rights law. They should hardly be surprised to discover that this argument doesn’t have a great deal of purchase – nor that, to the great bulk of the country, human rights advocates are perceived only to care about human rights when it comes to migrants (you could probably throw in criminals as well) and couldn’t really give two hoots about the general population. People like our friends at 1 Crown Office Row and the Public Law Project would be on a much firmer footing with their criticisms of the Bill of Rights Bill if they had spent the last three years going out to bat for the rights of the citizenry at large. Instead, the impression they’ve created is that rights only matter to them when it is politically expedient and relate to one of their hobby horses, like the rights of illegal migrants. Not many people are as well-educated as Professor Jim Murdoch or Angus McCullough KC. But they’re not thick, and they know the scent of a rat when they smell one.
Dr. David McGrogan is Associate Professor of Law at Northumbria Law School. This article first appeared on his Substack page. Subscribe here.
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Human rights lobby are mostly collectivist lefties and covid was a collectivist leftist project.
I read the proposals and filled in the consultation. I’m in favour of the UK being in control of its own laws (and borders) but I wasn’t impressed with our “Bill of Rights” – far too long, full of waffle and crucially full of caveats to every right, caveats around “public safety”, “security”, “emergencies” and the like. Read the US Bill of Rights – no caveats. We’re a million miles away from what I would consider a healthy balance between the accepted scope and proper remit of the state and those of the individual.
As a lawyer (thankfully retired) I’m ashamed of my profession as regards the last three years.
For what it’s worth my opinion is that they are effectively just a niche subset of the profession engages solely in immigration and not much else concerns them. They often use Judicial Reviews but only re immigration matters.
That said, I do agree with the importance of the Judicial Review being preserved in order to ensure that “government” power is kept in check.
Never mind the lawyers though, where did all the terrorists go?
Maybe they were, and still are, cowering behind sofas,
Maybe they thought any havoc they could cause would be totally insignificant.
Maybe they thought there was no way they could compete with Clown World anyway,
Maybe it was mission accomplished,
Maybe most terrorist attacks were mainly “false flags”.
(Apologies for the conspiracy theory re the last one)
No need to apologise. False flag events are and always have been a very real thing.
There is a lot of shame to go around. I am ashamed of my profession of medicine for the last 3 years. With a few noble exceptions we kowtowed to tyranny, ignored previous teaching on infectious respiratory disease, lockdowns and harms caused by medication. Many lied to patients about the disease and treatments.
It. is striking that the superstition of mask wearing only really persists within the medical profession.
The vast majority of ordinary people realise its absolutely pointless and prove it in their every day lives. The medical profession is the only one that continues to insist on it.
It makes you wonder what other delusions they are trying to push on us.
Me too.
As I have often written, my profession behaved abominably.
Our Human Rights Commission sounds to be in lockstep with its UK counterpart. Detaining illegal immigrants and we’ll take you to the High Court; lock down the entire country, enforce dangerous and ineffective “vaccines”, and nothing to say.
Absolutely spot on! I used to be a supporter of Amnesty International but now it makes me fume if they start banging on about human rights … not a peep from them in 2020!
I’ve dropped almost all my charitable contributions and rerouted them to organisations like FSU who IMO are a much more positive force for good.
I can’t think of a major charity that had anything sensible to say about covid.
Many of them were advocating for “vaccine equity” which was extremely low in the priorities of the beneficiaries, at least in Africa.
me too i went back to organic consumers association .they really speak up! and lost a lot of their donations because of it too. i especially knew not to get the so called vaccine thanks to them reading there years ago about GMOS
I’d not heard of them; good to know; thanks.
i think you will like what they say! at least about the past 3 years and also the war. is in the usa
Wikipedia says they are evil anti-vaxxers so they must be OK
yes a good sign, wikipedia being helpful for once
Amnesty used to be about protecting people from tyrannical governments. Then around 20 years ago it changed into a general purpose political lobby group.
“Amnesty used to be about protecting people from tyrannical governments. Then around 20 years ago it changed in to…”
…..an NGO for hire.
I have spent decades in Britain watching it become more wealthy and more open. I have watched it assimilate waves of immigrants who were escaping injustice and repression. I have seen it help in disasters around the world and witnessed significant improvements in health and longevity of its own population.
It is very strange. We managed this without a human rights act.
Since its introduction there have been measurable reductions in many of these metrics.
ECHR is used to demand open borders. An invasion and illegal entry is now a ‘human right’. What are these people fleeing from in France? HR activists seem intent on destroying our country. I don’t believe a jot of what they say or write. All rubbish and with an inimical, pecuniary and usually very illegal purpose.
Beware using the language of those who hate us.
It isn’t ‘human rights’ but ‘secular humanist dogma’, designed to obliterate 1500 years of Judeo Christian heritage.
The Human Rights brigade aren’t in the least bit interested in universal human rights. It’s just a means by which the interests of criminals, foreigners, “special” minority grounds can be prioritised above those of the vast majority.
Keir Starmer – supposed HR Lawyer – continually called for longer, harder, more draconian restrictions. Blair (wife an HR lawyer) wanted people to be forced to have an experimental gene therapy they didn’t need and demands Digital ID.
There is no such thing as a decent Human Rights Lawyer. They are, without exception, parasites.
Is there an money to be made defending the citizenry at large. I wonder. Maybe that has something to do with it too . . . . .
What is not being said by any commentator is that our human rights can only be taken away from us if we let them be taken. They are nobody else’s rights to give or take.
I also suspect that this abrogation & dereliction of duty by the human rights lawyers brigade was purposeful to undermine public confidence/belief to make it far easier for the government to remove the legislation & for the public to believe that the government/blob are doing this for the right reasons.
I couldn’t agree more..but it was even worse than that..where were the ‘personalities’, the philosophers, biographers and historians?
All absent…..worldwide……
I’m sure we could make a UK list, (and you can insert British names for the American ones)….
……this is Toby Rogers @uTobian take on the same theme in the USA…and hits the nail on the head….it says what a lot of us think….
“I struggle to find words to describe this:
Suddenly, in 2020, some of the smartest people in the world — James Surowiecki, Naomi Klein, Aaron Sorkin, Noam Chomsky, Slavoj Žižek, and so many more — stopped being smart. The test was simple — apply all of your smart social, economic, & political theories to Covid & vaccines. That task is not difficult — spend a few hours reading widely and apply a lifetime of sophisticated critical theory to our present conjuncture.
They all failed completely and catastrophically. It’s even worse than that actually — not only did they fail to use any of the skills that they developed over a lifetime, but they collapsed into fascism. Regressed into the most raw, primitive, pathological, reptilian parts of their brain — in response to a psyop that can be figured out in about two hours.
It’s over, that phase of American history, when a bunch of people baptized in the values of the 1960s, could be expected to provide the intellectual framework necessary to move society forward. There is no recovery from what they did, they collaborated with the enemy when the fate of society was on the line. To use their favorite phrase — they became “constitutive of” the predatory system they once sought to critique. Our society is so corrupt that the term “intellectual” no longer has a coherent meaning.
We continue on without them. Hyper-decentralized, completely grassroots, with an epistemology based on (mothers’ and fathers’) intuition and old ways. All heretofore existing political categories have dissolved. We cannot allow ourselves to ever be led again because power corrupts and even the most radical theorists, once they gain a bit of fame, eventually become absorbed into the genocidal system. No leaders, no institutions. Individuals, families, communities, nature, and spirit are the way.”
Thanks ebg. Toby Rogers nails the issue.
There are very, very few of what might have previously been considered the intellectual elites who have emerged from the last three years with any semblance of an intact reputation. The vast majority are now seen for what they are – well polished but empty vessels. Some held their ground such as Peter Hitchens and we have been blessed that Neil Oliver has come to the fore and now stands as a beacon glaring across the mediocrities.
I suppose Jonathan Sumption dabbled but that was all he did.
What an indictment of our society.
I remember many moons ago seeing a large book on my uncle’s shelf with the title along the lines of ‘Know Your Rights – A Handbook’. I think it may have been published by Readers Digest or Which or some such. I remember thinking why would you need such a thing in this the best of all possible countries. As I said, that was a long time ago.
I would value such a manual now. It’s interesting that no such modern title exists when I scan the bookseller’s websites.
Is there such a publication?
*Thanks for the t-shirt replies: I thought the slogan ‘Safe and Effective?’ Might be thought provoking.
Yes indeed where were any of these organisations and lawyers when we were deprived of the most basic and fundamental of human rights covered in the Act, where were they when the various green/freedom/vaccine passes were introduced?, where were they when Government ministers Tony Blair etc called on for the unvaccinated to be sacked from their jobs, denied basic freedoms and demonised by these elites? where were the human rights lawyers then?, where were they when the population was coerced into medical experimentation for a product that was not tested?, where were they when the care home workers were thrown out of their jobs?
I rang several law firms who sign themselves as human rights advocates to take a case against the Government for harassment as I was unvaccinated and had as a result been visited by Government officials (wardens) at night, and then Police to make sure I wasnt leaving my home post a holiday for which I had had to take a test and was negative. Not one of the Lawyers were interested.
The only Rights these Hypocrites are interested in are the rights to parade themselves on TV, in the MSM and to take monies from the various NGO’S they parasite off the back of.
I can only imagine if these same band had been around when it came to the reckoning with the Nazis at the end of WW2 we would probably have had the Mengeles, Eichmnans etc free and working in various senior positions.
The ECHR was constructed by the British as a tool to aid the keeping of peace in Europe after WW11 . It was never meant to be an excuse for the feckless and malcontents to traduce justice . Britain managed perfectly well before Blair and Straw decided that it needed to be incorporated into British Law in 1998 . From this point on , it has created injustice after injustice by protecting those who threaten the security of British Citizens . The above discussion exemplifies how its repeal is of interest only to those who have no concern for British rights and correctly points out that these parties were silent when our freedoms were removed by the Climate Act .
Our Rights are enshrined in the British Constitution (Magna Carta 1215) and protected by the Common Law – or should be if the former were not buried by tons of legislation and the latter overwritten by it.
The Human Rights Act gave us nothing we didn’t already have, but as it turns out we don’t have anything any more, just totalitarian Government.
Well exactly they weren’t custodians of anything they were pissing babies. It isn’t like we have the luxiry of time. We don’t have the luxury of acting like prats anymore like we have done for decades.
Another great piece by David. His articles are always spot on although I would have gone further and been less polite about these legal parasites that produce nothing for the common man while substantially lining their pockets.
They do not actually care about these migrants but they wish to virtue signal and create false sympathy while sucking on the milch cow of public and charitable funds.