Tag: Tories

Tories’ repeal of Human Rights Act could spark constitutional crisis

Newly appointed Justice Secretary Michael Gove will push ahead with Conservative plans to repeal the Human Rights Act – a move experts warn could spark a constitutional crisis and blight Britain’s reputation on human rights worldwide.

Conservative Party sources, fresh from last week’s general election victory, told the Guardian the human rights reforms are imminent.

Civil liberty advocates warn the soon-to-be implemented measures would erode the right to life, the right to privacy, the right to a fair trial, the right to protest and the right to freedom from torture and discrimination.

Although the Tories were keen to push ahead with the legal changes during their last term in government, the move was blocked by the party’s ex-coalition partner the Liberal Democrats. But as a majority government, the Conservatives are now poised to push ahead with the reforms.

Central to the Tories’ election manifesto was a pledge to repeal the Human Rights Act (HRA) and significantly curb the power of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Britain. The legal reforms are expected to surface in PM David Cameron’s plans for his first 100 days, which will be outlined in the Queen’s Speech on May 27.

Under these changes, the Conservatives would replace the HRA with a Tory-styled British Bill of Rights. Britain’s Supreme Court would no longer be answerable to the ECHR, with the Strasbourg-based court losing the power to order changes to UK law.

The plans were drawn up in 2014 by then-Secretary of State for Justice Chris Grayling. At the time, Grayling proposed Britain withdraw from the ECHR if the Council of Europe rejects the Conservatives’ British Bill of Rights.

Constitutional crisis

Considerable doubt exists among experts that the Council of Europe, a human rights watchdog responsible for ensuring the Convention is upheld, will accept the Tories’ proposals. As a result, it is widely believed Britain will disengage from the European Convention on Human Rights and undermine Europe’s’ civil liberties framework in the process.

Britain’s withdrawal from the ECHR has been strongly opposed by former Secretary of State for Justice Kenneth Clarke and the UK’s ex-Attorney General Dominic Grieve. Grieve has long condemned the proposal, warning its consequences would be devastating.

In December, he said the government’s threat to potentially abandon the Strasbourg court undermines international law and could fray the constitutional fabric that holds the United Kingdom together. Echoing grieve, analysts warn such a withdrawal would spark a constitutional crisis in the UK.

They suggest the move would be flatly rejected by Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) and would mean the Conservative government has violated Northern Ireland’s 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

Kicking Scotland in the teeth

Prime Minister David Cameron on Sunday ruled out giving Scotland another independence referendum despite spectacular gains by Scottish nationalists in a UK-wide election, saying Scots had “emphatically” rejected a breakaway only last year.

Cameron, who was re-elected with a surprise outright majority last week, said he would ensure that further powers would be granted to Scotland according to an existing plan. But he dismissed the idea that Scots might get another independence referendum anytime soon.

“We had a referendum. Scotland voted emphatically to stay in the United Kingdom,” Cameron told Channel 4 News.

“There isn’t going to be another referendum,” he said, saying the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP), which won 56 of 59 parliamentary seats in Scotland last week, had made clear that election was not about securing another vote.

Scots rejected independence in September 2014 by 55-45 percent after a lengthy and divisive campaign. Some nationalists said afterwards that the question had been decided for “a generation.”

The startling success of the SNP, which all but wiped out the Labour Party in Scotland last week, has renewed speculation it might push for another referendum, perhaps in the run-up to a Scottish parliamentary election next year.

Source: Reuters

The rise of nationalism in Britain

As the eurozone crisis continues, anti-establishment insurgencies like the Scottish National Party, SNP’s, are surfacing all over Europe: nationalist, populist, separatist, left or right.

As the British empire was gradually dissolved after the second world war and its industrial base attacked by younger, nimbler economies, the cohesion of the British state weakened.

There was an impulse towards supra-nationalism in the shape of membership in the European Union, but Britain joined late, in 1973.

English people – steeped in Britain’s maritime, imperial traditions – felt hostile towards the EU.

At the same time, long-smothered regional nationalism was reviving on Britain’s Celtic fringes. In divided Ireland, it was violent; in Scotland, political, emboldened by newly discovered North Sea oil; in Wales, initially, cultural, based around the preservation of the Welsh language.

That was in the 70s. Forty years on, these rival strands are much stronger, and testing the concept of “Britishness” to destruction.

The Scottish national party has barely paused for breath since losing last September’s referendum on independence for Scotland – immediately declaring itself the moral victor and demanding greater powers for Edinburgh.

Since the referendum result – 55% no, 45% yes – disaffected working-class Labour voters have flocked to the SNP. Polls suggest the Scottish nationalists, now led by Scotland’s new first minister, the formidable Nicola Sturgeon, will slaughter Labour north of the border, winning dozens of Scotland’s 59 seats and perhaps holding the balance of power in London. If she finds herself in that position, Sturgeon promises to block Cameron and prop up a minority Miliband administration.

Britain’s Tory newspapers are busy denouncing Sturgeon as “the most dangerous woman” in the country. Cameron – whose Tories have only one seat in Scotland – warns of a Scottish veto from the people who want to break up Britain. Miliband is embarrassed.

Meanwhile, in England, the populist anti-European right, in the form of the UK independence party (Ukip), has evolved under the skilful leadership of Nigel Farage.

Ukip’s proven ability to win protest votes at four-yearly elections to the 28-nation European parliament is now threatening the status quo at Westminster. It has two MPs (both defectors from the Tories) and hopes to win more on 7 May.

If that sounds familiar, it should. Though Ukip portrays itself as free market and libertarian, it is also deeply nostalgic, socially conservative, and suspicious of immigrants and big-government bureaucracy, especially from the EU’s Brussels headquarters.

Racist, homophobic and authoritarian? Certainly not, says Farage. We just want to be a self-governing sovereign state again. But Ukip’s “little guy” rank-and-file is not always quite so on-message. This is disruptive Tea Party Republicanism with added potency.

Ukip’s threat to the status quo is twofold. It may take enough votes away from Cameron’s Tories to deny the prime minister his slim hopes of a Commons majority on May 7, or even to stop him being the largest party, which would make it hard for him to form another coalition.

In a tight race, with both main parties polling at around 34%, Ukip’s rise may also hurt Miliband’s prospects by peeling off Labour’s equivalent of blue-collar Democrats, working-class voters fed up with stagnant wages and gay marriage, underfunded public services and “unpatriotic” liberals.

Source: The Guardian

British MPs too white says David Cameron

‘MPs do not represent the people of Britain properly because they are too white’

David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said there is ‘much more to be done’ to encourage more people from ethnic minority backgrounds to enter Parliament.

The Prime Minister said there is “much more to be done” to encourage more people from ethnic minority backgrounds to enter Parliament.

Mr Cameron made the comments in a preface to a book, “Rainbow over Westminster”, which charts the increasing number of MPs who are black or from ethnic minority backgrounds.

In the preface, Mr Cameron said that the book “serves as a reminder – that there is much more to be done.

“Our Parliament is still nowhere near representative enough of the country we live in today.

“We should not presume that this will simply correct itself over time. History isn’t written for us: it is written by us.”

Mr Cameron said that he hoped the book – which is edited by the Labour MP Keith Vaz, who became the first British Indian to sit in the Commons for over 60 years when he was elected in 1987 – would help “to open up politics further”.

Since the first MP was elected 172 years ago, there have been 38 ethnic minority MPs in the Commons. Today 26 out of 650 MPs are from BME backgrounds.

In the 2010 election 16 men and women from black and ethnic minority backgrounds were elected – a quintupling on the three who were elected in 1987.

In an introduction, John Bercow, the Commons’ Speaker, said: “We need to ensure that we continue to benefit from the greater diversity of elected representatives.”

Mark Hammond, chief executive of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said: “Parliament should be drawing from the widest talent pool so that people from a range of backgrounds have the opportunity to take part in political life and help make fair and well-informed decisions.”

Mr Cameron’s remarks come after research published last month from the Policy Exchange thinktank, which said that non-white people will make up between 20 and 30 per cent of the population by 2050. The current share is around 14 per cent.

The think-tank, which has close links to the Conservative Party leadership, also highlighted the differing political leanings of different ethnic groups, advising politicians not to treat non-white voters as a uniform group.

The coming growth in Britain’s non-white population is largely explained by a higher birth-rate among ethnic minority Britons.

A quarter of all children under 10 in the UK are from ethnic minorities.

By contrast, 95 per cent of people aged over 60 are white.

The Conservative Party is doing more to reach out to black and ethnic minority groups, although it refuses to make such moves public.

In April, Michael Gove, the Education secretary and a Tory moderniser, issued the said the Tories should reclaim the term “multi-culturalism”.

He told an audience at the Asian Business Awards told the 500-strong black tie dinner at a hotel in central London earlier this month that Britain was a “stronger country” because of its history of immigration.

He said: “The answer to how we make our country strong in the future is that we welcome talent from whenever it comes and we celebrate the fact that we are stronger together as a United Kingdom, as a multi-cultural nation than we could ever be if we looked back to the past.”

Source: The Telegraph