Chris Grayling’s proposals are a calculated move to win over UKIP’s growing constituency of angry little men
The world’s dictators and autocrats will sleep a little sounder tonight. “No more lectures Mr Cameron,” they will say, in preparation for the next time our Prime Minister attempts to talk about human rights violations on the world stage. And then, perhaps cordially, they will telephone our PM to congratulate him: ‘welcome to the club’.
Justice Secretary Chris Grayling will today set out the Government’s plans for a “British Bill of Rights and Responsibilities”. Or in the words of Amnesty International, Grayling will propose “a blueprint for human rights you would expect from a country like Belarus”. Under a majority Conservative Government, the Human Rights Act, which was introduced by Labour in 1998, would be repealed and replaced by this British Bill of Rights.
Britain may not yet be a “banana republic”, but such is the state of politics in this country that a winning electoral strategy now involves posturing as if you want the UK to become one.
The Conservatives’ attempt at trashing the Human Rights Act is pure Ukip-fodder; where Nigel Farage goes, the establishment follows. Farage, an admirer of Vladimir Putin, the bare-chested persecutor of homosexuals, is now the trend-setter of British conservatism. And if that means pretending to line up alongside Europe’s last outpost of unadulterated despotism for electoral advantage, then so be it.
I say this because, despite the sabre rattling, scrapping the Human Rights Act is not as revolutionary an act as the Justice Secretary is making out. According to Barrister and Former government Lawyer Chris Garner, “many of these changes are sounding brass”. Hot air and red meat for the gutter press, in other words; but very little that would actually change very much.
No doubt to the chagrin of the right-wing press, the Government is not proposing a withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights, nor is it opting out of the jurisdiction of the European Court. This means that the proposed British Bill of Rights would not have stopped hate preacher Abu Qatada from delaying his removal from the country (his deportation would still have breached the Convention) and it means that under Grayling’s plans prisoners would still not have the vote.
And this gets to the nub of the matter. Grayling’s proposals are a calculated political move by a government that is desperately seeking to win over UKIP’s growing constituency of angry little men. “I wouldn’t say the plan signifies nothing; but it’s not as significant at it sounds,” as Garner puts it. The changes are largely cosmetic. They are alpha male posturing. Or as the cliché goes, the Tories are trying to “out UKIP UKIP”.
And yet sound and fury matter. And they matter beyond the parochial and tedious fight over UKIP/Tory marginals. For while Grayling’s plan may not result in a sweeping transformation at home, the message it sends abroad is unambiguous: no more human rights lectures from Britain.
Rather than being a “gift to our enemies”, as the Daily Mail would have it, the Human Rights Act is actually the opposite. Introduced by New Labour in a moment of radicalism, it undermines the Russias, the Venezuelas and the Saudi Arabias of the world by providing an example of something better.
That something is universality: the idea that regardless of ethnicity, gender, sexuality or political affiliation, human beings are basically the same, and as such are deserving of the same treatment by the State. National “sovereignty”, the refuge of every dictator and demagogue the world over, is replaced by the sovereignty of the individual. In a reversal of the formulation deployed by your average kleptocracy, human rights emphasise a citizen’s unencumbered right to interfere in their own internal affairs.
Unfortunately, and in common with the Chinese Politburo, the Conservatives are this week loudly emphasising the importance of “sovereignty” when it comes to democracy and human rights; even if, in the case of the latter, they don’t really mean it.
And if talking up human rights matters, talking them down matters more. Now we must expect the world’s most unpleasant regimes to do the same. And when the latter do it, they will really mean it, with consequences far beyond a short-term bounce in the polls and a kick in the shin for Mr Farage. Dictators around the world will applaud this Tory human rights vandalism, even if it is make-believe.
James Bloodworth is the editor of Left Foot Forward. Follow him on Twitter
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64 Responses to “The Conservatives’ plan to scrap the Human Rights Act will be applauded by dictators around the world”
InbredBlockhead
No, my views are far from undemocratic, and I do not fight against `BRITISH` law, rather do you wish to see BRITISH LAW overuled. Please direct me to any statement made by myself that suggests I believe torture to be popular?
However, in my view, as a member of an ethnic minority, someone like
Baroness Neuberger would tend to be in favour of measures which would reduce or override
majority rights.
One can see this syndrome in many areas of British public life – ethnic
interests, (and Jewish people are only one of several groups in this)
consciously or unconsciously underpinning what on the surface is a ‘liberal’ /
leftist ideology..
The interesting fact is that if the Cultural Marxist judicial selection ideal
of ethnicity being represented proportionally in the judiciary were achieved
in the interests of ‘equality’, there would be very few Jewish people in the
Judiciary – ever, After all, Jewishness must surely be the subject of diversity
and there are only about 3/400,000 Jews in the country. This is represents a
tiny percentage.
There are three or four Jewish people on the Supreme Court at the moment, I believe.
InbredBlockhead
British Judges of what ethnic origin?
InbredBlockhead
Lord Neuberger of Rothschilds
Written by Green Arrow
Damn but the Zionist warren runs deep through the decaying corpse of our dis-United Kingdom.
Yesterday in an article, I wrote about the very liberal Judge Stephen Dawson and the fact that he had taken part in a video with a bunch of future lawyers/QCs and probably future Judges and that these people, although they may well be “British Citizens” were clearly not British and would no doubt have views and opinions that would not be to the benefit of the True British People.
Now I read, that the Jewish Lord Neuberger, a “former merchant banker” and employee of the Rothschild world empire, has been appointed as Our Country’s most senior Judge and was fast tracked through the legal profession from day one, in the same way that the Jewish David Cameron and defender of Israel, was fast tracked to lead the conservative Party.
Is there no part of British Life that the Jews are not now in controlling positions? From the Football Association through to Parliament they are everywhere and in control of almost EVERYTHING that determines the direction of what was once Our country.
It is interesting to note, that yet another Jew, Lord Dyson has taken over Neubergers previous job and second highest position as Master of the Rolls and it seems that a third Jewish Judge will take over as Lord Chief Justice next year, the third highest position.
Checking the net for information on Neuberger, we learn that he played a direct part in “widening access to the Bar”, which has certainly helped those who would enrich us, to become the future Judges over us, when he served on a panel called Fair Access to the Professions, that also had Alan Miburn a former Health Secretary with possible links to paedophiles, the Jewish Michael Grade, Chairman of ITV as well as the black head of the of the Commission for Equalities and Human Rights, Trevor Phillips who once paid a close personal friend £308,000 of taxpayers money, on the same panel.
Do you honestly think those people would really protect the interests of the True British People?
As well as finding time to be Our Country’s senior judge, Neuberger still finds time to support other “worthy” causes, if they are Jewish causes that is, such as being on the Advisory Committee on the Spoliation of Art during the Holohoax, which is a Jewish Organisation that seeks to “recover” works of art that they say were stolen from them during the Second World Zionist started war and a fund raiser for Jewish Care.
Neuberger is opposed to Free Speech and said that social media sites like ours and others are “totally out of control” – that is code for speaking the truth – and that society should consider ways to bring such websites under (their Jewish) control.
He was also the pro-illegal wars Judge, who ruled that the anti-war peace protesters be removed from Parliament Square. All in all he is a key player in running the Zionist Farm, formerly known as Great Britain.
Neuberger is married to the TV producer Angela Holdsworth, who was responsible for producing a programme on one of the vilest pieces of filth ever to walk the earth, the Jewish Liar and persecutor of white patriots, Simon Wiesenthal, long may he rot in hell and I will not weep when one day, Neuberger joins him there.
Finally, a message to those of you who say that I should not write about the Jews because it makes the site seem anti-Semitic and could damage nationalism. What damage could this site do that is any worse than what the Jewish Zionists have already done and continue to do? Just tell the people the truth.
What really hacks me off are those so called intellectuals in Nationalism who know the truth about the Jewish Domination over us and who do not have the balls to say or write anything about it. Cowards, they really do make me puke
Leon Wolfeson
Ah, you’re an anti-Semite.
Out to play with yourself in public.
What a surprise.
Guest
You’re a spewing anti-Semitism, out for your Pogroms, raving about “cultural marxism”.
Your hatred for British rights and values is clear, as you try and conflate “popular” with what you’ve called for.