Sir Keir Starmer was a pioneer of groundbreaking legal cases that opened the floodgates for war crime claims against British troops in Iraq, according to his Attorney General Lord Hermer’s own testimony. The Telegraph has the story.
In a detailed 40-page witness statement, Lord Hermer set out the Prime Minister’s role in establishing case law that effectively opened the floodgates to hundreds of claims brought by Iraqis against the Ministry of Defence.
In his evidence, Lord Hermer said that Sir Keir had worked on two key legal claims which established that human rights laws in the UK should also apply in Iraq, where British troops were deployed.
The cases gave Iraqis a green light to sue the British government for false imprisonment and mistreatment. Critics have accused the Prime Minister of bringing landmark cases that effectively led to a witch hunt against British troops, including thousands of false claims brought by the disgraced solicitor Phil Shiner.
In one of the cases, Sir Keir was instructed by Shiner, who was subsequently struck off for dishonesty and convicted of fraud.
This week, the Telegraph disclosed that Lord Hermer, now the Attorney General, was lead counsel for Iraqi insurgents who falsely claimed that British troops had executed Iraqis captured after the Battle of Danny Boy in 2004. The claims for hundreds of thousands of pounds in damages from the British government were dropped after the “deliberate lies” of Lord Hermer’s clients were exposed at the al-Sweady public inquiry 10 years later.
Sir Keir’s role in paving the way for legal actions against Britain is laid out in a statement given by Lord Hermer in defence of another human rights solicitor who was also facing a solicitors disciplinary tribunal hearing at the time. Martyn Day, a renowned human rights lawyer who founded the law firm Leigh Day, was cleared of wrongdoing.
In his witness statement, given in 2016, Lord Hermer said:
I was a relatively junior member of the Bar at the time of the Iraq war but nonetheless, as allegations related to the conflict began to emerge, along with distinguished academics and other more senior human rights practitioners such as Keir Starmer QC (now Sir Keir Starmer QC MP), Rabinder Singh QC (as he then was) and Michael Fordham QC, I was starting to think through the issue of the availability of relief in domestic courts.
In one case, Lord Hermer explained how he and Sir Keir were instructed “to intervene… by a variety of domestic and international NGOs” on a claim brought by “six test claimants in respect of injuries sustained in a variety of circumstances in southern Iraq at the hands of UK troops”.
According to Lord Hermer’s evidence, the case, which eventually went to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, established a landmark ruling that the European Convention on Human Rights “was capable in certain circumstances of extending to southern Iraq”.
Worth reading in full.
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Our political leaders are rotten to the core. I suppose there may be one or two with honesty and integrity somewhere but they are hugely outnumbered by liars, self-interested opportunists, and many whose politics are not rooted in this country. Or am I just a very old cynic with 60 years voting experience and seeing so many pious words and promises being ditched soon after achieving power? I struggle to bring to mind any government of the past 60 years which has left the country in a better position after their period in government (perhaps Margaret Thatcher but she had her serious failings).
How can this be?
Because of the constitutional vandalism of Tony B.Liar and his fellow travellers, that’s how it has been possible.
Needs a complete reversal of all of the B.Liar poison.
Seconded 👍
Utter filth. They should both be in a military-run prison for a very, very long time.
Well done to the DS for featuring this latest piece of investigative journalism by the Telegraph, exposing treachery that’s really off the scale!
And this traitor (for that is what he is) is our Prime Minister.
A Prime Minister who led a witch hunt against men and women who would take a bullet to protect us. That is quite something.
Then he had the sheer gall to go on about ”plastic patriotism” the other day;
“That means when people try to hijack our flag to spread hate, we should call it out for what it is: plastic patriotism that corrodes the very bonds that tie us together.”
He added: “I know what the flag of St George stands for. It stands for decency over division. Unity over hate. And a country where patriotism is measured by what you put in, not what hate you stir up. Those are the values I will always fight for.”
https://www.thenational.scot/news/26046237.keir-starmer-blasts-plastic-patriots-st-georges-day/
Now that’s what I call brass neck.
Visceral revulsion now intellectually explained.
In the light of this evidence of Starmer’s visceral animus against Britain’s finest, does he still trust his personal protection team?
Luckily for him, and unlike him, they will be highly professional and probably honourable men.
Judges establish case law in our Common Law system. This and the Common Law gives very strong protection to the citizenry.
What has increasingly been happening is our Common Law system has been over-written by Continental Code Law and some mysterious beast called International Law, by a bunch of grifter-lawyers.
Code Law is beloved by dictators because it can be worded in their favour and offer no protection to the citizenry.
It’s no wonder that Trump is beginning to treat the UK as the enemy. If the government can’t be trusted by it’s own people then why would anyone else trust them.