Tories put your rights in peril

The Tories want to abolish the Human Rights Act and replace it with a watered down Bill of Rights.

Their first try was attacked by former Tory attorney general Dominic Grieve who said it was “unworkable” with a “number of howlers.”

It did not take long after their election victory for harmony to descend into a new split within the Tory party. If you want to set them off fighting like cats in a sack just mention the words “Europe” and “human rights”.

What we’re now seeing is the start of a process of attacking human rights as the Tory right and UKIP try to outdo each other in the ‘who hates Europe most stakes’.

And we’re being caught up in a power battle on the right wing fringe of politics which could put human rights at risk.

The plan sounds simple. Repeal the Human Rights Act (HRA), introduce a UK Bill of Rights – precise contents unknown and withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

Problem?

What’s their problem? The European Court of Human Rights, which oversees the Convention, was used on hundreds of occasions before Human Rights Act became law. The HRA allowed faster decisions about human rights to be made directly in British courts rather than only in the ECHR.

Since the HRA became law in 1998 it has allowed for faster delivery of decisions on, for example, protection for those with disabilities and with mental health issues who have had their human rights infringed. Cases brought in British courts under the Convention, for example, halted the investigation and expulsion of gay people from the military.

And it has nothing to do with the European Union and whether we leave the EU or stay.

Now Cameron has brought in Michael Gove to smooth over the problems. But does he have the skills and the knowledge?

Gove, booted out of the last Cabinet after an open fight broke out between his camp and Theresa May’s is now, justice secretary and Lord Chancellor. He is tasked with axing the Human Rights Act and replacing it with a Bill of Rights.

David Cameron does not like the Human Rights Act or the Convention on Human Rights to which the UK government has signed up to. He did not like, for example, the European Court of Human Rights ruling against the blanket ban on prisoners voting in elections.

He told the Commons, “It makes me physically ill even to contemplate having to give the vote to anyone who is in prison.” Perhaps his view mellowed after his friend and former director of communications, Andy Coulson was jailed for phone hacking.

The right wing media have been in full flow against human rights, with a full dose of hypocrisy and self-interest thrown in.

Tony Parsons in the Sun on Sunday wondered, “why only the cruel and the wicked have human rights?”  But then the Sun used the protection of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights to protect its journalists during the Plebgate inquiry.

‘Enemies’

The Daily Mail concluded the “Human Rights Act is a gift to our enemies.” Enemies? They probably meant the National Union of Journalists who won a case using the human rights convention against the Daily Mail after the paper de-recognised the NUJ and rewarded non-union members with higher pay.

Or the train drivers’ union ASLEF which won a case allowing them to refuse a BNP member into the union. Unite has taken a case to the ECHR following the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board and the duty to promote collective bargaining under International Labour Organisation Convention 98.

It’s a critical point, lost on the Tory right, that the UK has signed a number of international treaties that build on each other like the construction of a house of cards. That includes union and workplace rights under ILO Conventions, the Council of Europe’s Social Charter  and the UN’s International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural rights.

It also includes a number of other Treaties which place reliance on adherence to the European Convention on Human Rights. Pull out of one and the others are undermined.

New justice secretary Chris Grayling – the first non-lawyer to hold the position – found this out when he promised the Conservatives would publish a document “setting out what we will do, when we will do it, and how we will do it.”

He published an eight page strategy paper which claimed the HRA undermined the UK courts and should be scrapped. David Cameron wanted a Bill of Rights which reflected “British values” and that the UK did not “require instruction from judges in Strasbourg.”

Howlers

The paper was strongly attacked by Dominic Grieve, a former Tory Attorney General who said the proposals were “unworkable” and had a “number of howlers”.

Top of the howlers was the total lack of understanding of how human rights were developing within the process of devolution. The Act granting Scotland devolution requires the human rights set out in the European convention to be complied with.

In Northern Ireland the Good Friday agreement commits all parties to a process of forming a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland. This agreement is underpinned by an international treaty lodges at the United Nations which makes this crystal clear.

Grieve was very critical of this omission. “I think it is right to say that, in the case of Northern Ireland, it is a requirement that ultimately people in NI can take cases to the ECHR. And yet Chris Grayling has just written a paper which makes no reference to this issue or how it can be solved.”

But the ignorance of those pushing for exit from the ECHR and for a British Bill of Rights does not stop there. The Guardian has recently revealed some of the thinking behind a draft bill, the contents of which should be laughed at for their ignorance and stupidity.

This draft proposed three tiers of rights under the European Convention: British citizens with full rights, EU citizens with fewer rights, others with even fewer rights. Those are not universal rights free to everyone equally, quite the opposite.

So what do we have? We’ve the right wing of the Tory Party starting a row about something they do not understand and who have, so far, come up with no alternative which makes any sense even to their own side.

International Law

Howard Beckett, Unite’s legal director is scathing of the Tory approach. He told UNITElive, “The Human Rights Act is not European Law but accepted International Law that is upheld by the European Court of Justice.

“This is the reason why the Act was referenced in the Good Friday Agreement and the reason why the Scottish government considers this to be a devolved power under Justice.

“The replacement of International Law, as upheld by the European Court of Justice, with a UK Bill of Rights means that once again a UK government is prepared to ignore international law and allow basic human rights to be decided not by international humanitarian principles, but instead by the whim of the government of the day.

“That this government is prepared to play politics with the Human Rights Act to quell the angst of its right wing, makes its own statement as to their principles.”

He added, “If anyone is in doubt about the agenda of the Tory Party, to further dismantle the rights of trade unions and the individual, then ask the Tories the simply question ‘which fundamental right, protected by the Human Rights Act, do you want our country to no longer have the protection of?’

“This government should heed that the peoples of the whole of the United Kingdom, as well as good-minded MPs, will not easily allow the fundamental principles of the Human Rights Act to be given up for the short term convenience of the Tories.”

Clear dangers

There are clear dangers of abolition of the Human Rights Act or even withdrawal from the Convention, especially as unions build and develop strategies to use human rights to assist British workers.

No one, apart from the Tories, seriously threatens to withdraw from the ECHR and the human rights protections it gives. And the Tories do not have a clue what they are doing, as Dominic Grieve has pointed out.

The Tory right have started a debate which has the potential to split the Tory party and unify opposition to these plans. So let’s help them.