By Private Eye Political Correspondent Noah Surprise.
There was widespread shock across Britain today that the £12 billion of welfare cuts promised in the Tory election manifesto would turn out to be £12 billion of cuts to the welfare budget.
“We definitely didn’t think these 12 billion worth of cuts would involve people like us,” said one first-time Tory voter, having her child tax credits halved.
“We thought it would only affect those wretched people on those awful benefit shows on Channel 4.”“We feel utterly betrayed by the Tories,” said another father, who is having his family working tax credits slashed.
“Why didn’t Osborne say these 12 billion worth of cuts would affect me? I naturally assumed it would hit people in the North, guests on the Jeremy Kyle show and muslims. That’s why I voted Tory.”
George Osborne has insisted he’d worked hard to ensure that the cuts to benefits were spread evenly between those people most likely to vote Labour and those most likely to vote Lib Dem.
And finally, a timely reminder of Martin Niemöller’s words on the ultimately self-destructive complicity of bystander apathy, because despots never simply attack and persecute the group of your choosing:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
I’ve remained quite detached from the Labour leadership debates. I’ve seen an awful lot of infighting that saddens me, much of it has been fueled by what is now standardised, mainstreamed mediacratic misinformation, misquotes and generally fiendish right-wing mischief-making. I’ve purposefully avoided getting caught in the crossfire.
Most of you already know my position on the matter – that whilst I think Jeremy Corbyn reflects my own values and principles most closely and has my support, I will continue to campaign from within the Labour Party for progressive change, regardless of who is leading. I will also continue to campaign to raise public awareness as best I can at a broader level, regarding key social issues.
I’ve saidelsewherethat I have never regarded a Labour government as the end of our fight for progressive and positive change, but rather, as the only viable starting point.
The Labour Party is a broad church. I can respect other people’s various preferences for a party leader. Not least because I recognise that the Labour Party is on the horns of a dilemma. However, much of that dilemma has been created by the shiftingOverton Window, nudged ever rightwards by the radical Conservative neoliberal paternalists in office.
It’s worth considering that even the least esteemed party leader has given us social policies that have meant most of society are much better off than they are under ANY Tory government. Yet here we are with a second term of Conservative austerity: welfare is being dismantled, the NHS is being steadily privatised, public services are stripped of funding, there is growing inequality, grinding poverty and increasingly, human rights abuses.
It’s a point that many people seem to miss. The so-called High Priest of neoliberalism – Tony Blair – presented us with some outstanding social policies nonetheless, such as the Human Rights Act, the Equality Act, the Climate Change Act, the Anti-Bribery Act, Every Child Matters, the Fox Hunting Ban and animal welfare policies, Good Friday Agreement, andmany more, which the Tories are currently very busy trying to repeal. These policies certainly defy the widespread, retrospectively applied “Thatcherist” label and do not fully warrant the sheer extent of knee-jerk hatred that people pour out at any mention of Blair nowadays. This said, Blair was certainly a neoliberal, and his social safety nets were designed entirely in that context: to protect people from the very worst ravages of the economic neoliberalism that he endorsed.
Without the Human Rights Act and the Equality Act, we would not have won any of the legal cases brought against the Tories, regarding the welfare reforms.
Just for the record, I am not a Blairite. I didn’t like the Third Way – left-wing social policies with a neoliberal economics compromise. I protested against Iraq. However, if the Party is to learn, develop and move on, we must have an open mind, a balanced view and not dismiss the lessons from merits and success because there were also failures. And Blair’s synthesis of a reduced, ethical socialism was at least founded on an idea that we can remove some of the unjust elements of capitalism by providing state safeguards, including social welfare, public services and via protective policies. Now we are desperately fighting to preserve that basic layer of traditional and institutionalised social justice. The persistent Conservative narrative, comprising of tales of “welfare dependency” and “scroungers” have de-normalised collectivism and shifted the balance between citizen rights and responsibilities, unfavourably.
As a result, the Labour Party is caught between a rock and a hard place. Many supporters don’t seem to know which way to turn.
Some people think we should take a sharp left turn, re-embracing our post-war principles, others feel we would be better moving right towards a Blairist central destination, more in line with the perception of where the ever-narrowing Overton Window has placed shifting public opinion. Do people want a principled-responsive or populist-responsive party? The latter option, it is held, will make the party seem more electable. The difficulty is that the apparent public shift to the right make achieving both options difficullt. And neither direction is without risk.
Perhaps one way to define the dilemma clearly is by seeing it as that of “the real” and “the ideal” – the “real” is that we have to appeal to the broadest base of the population that we can, yet without compromising our inclusive, internationalist principles, we will continue to lose supporters to UKIP and the right. The “ideal” is that we very much need to build bridges with other progressive, anti-austerity parties, appealing to and uniting the left. But that is also risky because there has been a public shift to the right, here in England, at least.
Nationalism in England seems to have pulled many to the right, nationalism in Scotland (allegedly) pulled people left.
I don’t hide the fact that I am skeptical about the claims made by the Scottish National Party, and have pointed out more than once that Sturgeon’s skillful rhetoric, which is peppered with Glittering Generalities, does not connect up with concomitant policies.
The latter direction – the ideal – is the most appealing to me, and probably the easiest one to take, since it means compromising few if any of our traditional core values and principles. And of course, it presents a very clear, much needed alternative to social conservatism and neoliberalism. If we aim at uniting the left it would obviously make an election win much more likely in the future.
It is down to us to continue to raise public awareness about the devasting socio-economic consequences of Conservatism and unfettered neoliberalsm, and to present a clear, bold, coherent and cogent alternative.
We need to be shouting loudly that austerity has nothing to do with economic competence, it’s an ideologically-driven, crude experiment in human despair, for a start. We need to smash the illusion of cosy consensus, reflected in the Conservative and mediacratic smoke and mirror rhetoric.
The fact that the right-wing Sun feels at liberty to publicly endorse Kendall, who is widely perceived as the tame Blairite candidate for the leadership, indicates the extent to which the establishment want to thwart even a gesture of democratic socialism. Within OUR party.
And then there are the vile Conservative party supporters who never fail to descend to the blatantly despicable, launching a campaign to elect Jeremy Corbyn as the next Labour leader, strictly as a manipulative and opportunist event to discredit what they fear and loathe the most.
It’s not as if the ridiculous Right’s dominant social Conservative/neoliberal narrative has any coherence, it’s a just a flimsy justifcation of crass inequality, cruelty and primitive tyranny.
There’s a lot of bad faith and reduced trust amongst many of us on the somewhat factionalised left, which makes working together a far from easy task. Nonetheless, it seems to be the only viable option, to me.
Perhaps we simply need a timely reminder that the real enemy is and always was the Tories – they are relentlessly and systematically uncivilising and desolating the country, dismantling our post-war settlement – our finest achievement – and they are coldly and remorsely destroying many people’s lives. And then blaming their victims, punishing those that they have impoverished for being poor.
We must make sure that the unremitingly savage social Darwinist dystopia that the Tories have designed is not normalised by the malicious political and media establishment, the swivel-eyed, ever-scornful twittering Conservative commentariat. Tyranny and cruelty must not become so casualised and entrenched in the public’s psyche that we forget what it is to be civilised, forget how to be humane, forget basic human kindness. If we lose hope, lose faith in each other, we really are lost.
We must present our alternative narrative, remembering that once our society evolved and progressed, now it is diminishing and regressing. It’s time to push back at the enclosing, stifling boundaries, crushing human potential as it drags us inwards, reducing us from human subjects to objects of increasingly depopulated, dehumanising socio-economic policies founded on ideology, not human need.
There is a great need for the ever-fragmented left to work together to achieve common aims, and placed less emphasis on the minutiae of party politics and divisive electioneering tactics, prioritising crucial social issues and needs instead.
Many people are suffering terribly because of brutal Tory policies, and we would be shabby, barren socialists indeed if we didn’t give our full attention and effort to doing our best in working cooperatively to organise and fight collectively to oppose the authoritarians and push back hard for positive change.
What’s the point in sterile debating and fighting amongst ourselves about what “real” socialism is when we don’t do the necessary joined-up thinking that brings about its practice?
I say let’s do it. Let’s be the change we want to see.
The alternative is to continue to witness the terrible consequences of a pathological world-view, now creeping forward to catastrophically affect more and more ordinary people, as Tory authoritarian ideology is translated from Darwinist rhetoric into public policies that manifest harsh, bleak social realities.
Many Green Party supporters have rejoined the Labour Party to support Jeremy Corbyn. There is still a clear unifying momentum going on at grassroots level, and it’s overwhelmingly behind a clear, socialist alternative. Let’s go with the flow.
Upwards and onwards.
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A group of senior Labour Party figures have said that David Cameron should drop his plans to dismantle the Human Rights Act.
In a joint letter, headed by acting leader Harriet Harman and Lord Falconer, the Shadow Secretary of State for Justice, the Prime Minister is asked to abandon his plans to scrap the Act entirely.
Harriet Harman said: “What an irony that yesterday the Prime Minister was presiding over the celebration of Magna Carta at the same time he’s planning to undermine the Human Rights Act.
“No wonder that though he mentioned human rights in South Africa – and preyed in aid Nelson Mandela – and mentioned human rights in India – and preyed in aid Ghandi – he could not bring himself to mention Europe and our Convention.”
The Human Rights Act is a UK law passed by the Labour government in 1998. It means that you can defend your rights in the UK courts, instead of having to travel to Strasbourg – and that public organisations, including the Government, the Police and local councils, must treat everyone equally, with fairness, dignity and respect.
The Human Rights Act protects all of us – young, old, rich and poor. It originates from an international response to the atrocities of World War Two, including the Holocaust and fascist regimes. The Human Rights Act consolidates much of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, 1948.
The whole point of Human Rights is that they are universal. Yet despite this, the Government wants to replace our Human Rights Act with their “British Bill of Rights and Responsibilities”. This would weaken everyone’s rights, they would become open to subjective interpretation – leaving politicians to decide when our fundamental freedoms should and should not apply.
As you are aware, this year is the 800th anniversary of the signing of Magna Carta, a year to celebrate Britain’s role as a guarantor of individual rights. Yet, as we celebrate this great landmark, the commitment to individual human rights now appears to be under threat.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights – adopted in 1948 – which Conservative politicians contributed to – enshrines:
The right to life, liberty and security
The right to a fair trial
Protection from torture
Freedom of thought, conscience, religion, speech and assembly
The right to free elections
The right not to be discriminated against
Which of these rights do you not agree with?
Defending the Human Rights Act and our membership of the European Convention on Human Rights is not straightforward because it often involves defending the rights of an unworthy individual from a legitimate authority, or the rights of an unpopular minority from a popular majority.
The Human Rights Act is always going to be a nuisance to those in power because it stops them getting on and doing things unconstrained. But there is an inherent susceptibility for those who have power to extend it, to over-reach and ultimately abuse it. And that is irrespective of how legitimate that power is, how they acquired that power and whether or not they think they are doing the right thing.
So it is right that government ministers should have to look over their shoulder and that their power is tempered by other people’s rights. And we do need to have our executive and our legislature set within a framework of human rights.
This is important to people’s human rights here in Britain and for the human rights of those in other countries. If we were to walk away from our international human rights treaty obligations, we would not be able to press other countries to respect human rights. We cannot say to others in Europe – particularly Eastern Europe – that they should stay within a European framework but that we have somehow outgrown it, or don’t need it anymore.
Human rights are part of, not at variance with, our British values and they matter for our place in the world.
We understand you have put your plans on hold for a year, while you work out exactly how you will go about the dismantling of our human rights laws.
We ask you today to abandon your plans entirely, and as a result of the public interest in this issue, will be releasing this letter to the media.”
It is signed by the Rt Hon Harriet Harman MP, Interim Leader of the Labour Party, and the Rt Hon Lord Charles Falconer QC, Shadow Lord Chancellor and Shadow Secretary of State for Justice.
The letter is also signed by Andy Slaughter, shadow minister for justice, Lord Bach, shadow attorney general, Karl Turner, shadow solicitor general, Keir Starmer MP, Baroness Corston, former chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Baroness Kennedy QC and Kate O’Rourke, chairman of the Society of Labour Lawyers.
Originally, the cross-party committee was established to scrutinise the plans of the Coalition government, such as the House of Lords Reform and the Alternative Vote – many of which never made it onto the statute books.
The parliamentary committee’s main role was toscrutinise proposed major constitutional changes. This undemocratic development is especially worrying given the likelihood of significant constitutional changes in the forthcoming parliament, with the referendum on membership of the European Union set to be held within the next two years.
There are further plans for devolution of powers to Scotland and Wales, as well as to cities, and it is expected that these will be delivered at the same time as the government repeals the Human Rights Act, and draws up a bill of rights to replace it.
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. In fact the plans are highly unlikely to be accepted. As a result, it is quite widely believed Britain will disengage from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and undermine Europe’s’ civil liberties framework in the process.
Cameron has previouslypledged to withdraw from the ECHR, indicating plainly that he is indifferent to the fact that such a withdrawal would very likely spark a complex constitutional crisis in the UK.
If the Human Rights Act is repealed in its entirety, the repeal will apply to the whole of the UK. The Scotland Act gives powers to the Scottish Parliament, provided that they comply with the ECHR (among other things). This would not change with repeal of the Human Rights Act alone.
However, human rights are also partially devolved (the Scottish Parliament, for example, has set up a Scottish Human Rights Commission), and so any unilateral repeal of the Human Rights Act by Westminster would violate theSewell Convention, which outlines that the Westminster government will: “not normally legislate with regard to devolved matters in Scotland without the consent of the Scottish Parliament.” Nicola Sturgeon has stated clearly that the Scottish National Party oppose the repeal of the Human Rights Act.
And similar principles apply through thememoranda of understandingswith each of the devolved legislatures in the UK.
In Northern Ireland, human rights are even further devolved than in Scotland, and the Human Rights Act (HRA) is explicitly mentioned in the Good Friday Act in 1998. To repeal the HRA would violate an international treaty as the Agreement was also an accord between two sovereign states – the UK and the Irish Republic.
Repealing the HRA unilaterally would put the UK in violation of the Good Friday Agreement, and its international treaty obligations to Ireland. This would certainly damage our international reputation, as well as having consequences for the reciprocity on which the Treaty depends.
It’s quite possible that it would also be understood within Northern Ireland as a violation of both letter and the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement, signalling that the UK government were no longer committed to the Agreement.
The Good Friday Agreement was also subject to a referendum in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, both having to consent for the Agreement to be implemented. The referendum enabled the Agreement to have widespread legitimacy, but importantly, because it took place in both parts of Ireland, it answered historic Republican claims to be using violence to secure the “right to self-determination” of the Irish people.
It was also necessary to changing the Irish Constitution. So a unilateral move away from UK commitments carries serious bad faith and democratic legitimacy implications, potentially with deeply problematic historical consequences.
The Conservatives also have plans to reintroduce the redefining of parliamentary constituency boundaries in a way that will be advantageous to the Conservative party. It is estimated that the planned changes will help the Tories to win up to 20 extra seats at a future election.
It was during the last term that theproposals were originally put forward. Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs were joined by those of smaller parties – including the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the DUP, the Greens and Respect – to defeat the proposals, giving them majority in voting down the Tory plans for boundary changes.
The Tories are also committed to implementing a form of “English vote for English” laws – a move which will further undermine ties within the UK. But this pre-election pledge placed an emphasis upon English voting rights to undermine the nationalist appeal of UKIP south of the Border, whilst spotlighting the constitution to bolster the Scottish National Party in Scotland, again using nationalism tactically to disadvantage the Labour Party.
At a time when the government is planning potentially turbulent constitutional changes in the forthcoming parliament, the move to abolish the watchdog – The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee – will serve to insulate the Tories from democratic accountability and scrutiny.
The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee hadinstigated an inquiry in 2013regarding increasingly inconsistent standards in the quality of legislation, which resulted inseveral key recommedations, one of which was the development of a Code of Legislative Standards, and another was the creation of a Legislative Standards Committee.
Thegovernment responsewas little more than an extravagant linguistic exercise in avoiding accountability, transparency and scrutiny. Having waded through the wordy Etonian etiquette of paragraph after paragraph in the formal responses to each recommendation, the meaning of each may be translated easily enough into just one word: no.
For example: “A bill when it is published is the collectively agreed view of the whole Government on how it wishes to proceed. The process by which it has arrived at that view is a matter for the Government, not for Parliament.”
“The Government does not believe that a Code of Legislative Standards is necessary or would be effective in ensuring quality legislation. It is the responsibility of government to bring forward legislation of a high standard and it has comprehensive and regularly updated guidance to meet this objective. … Ultimately, it is for Ministers to defend both the quality of the legislation they introduce and the supporting material provided to Parliament to aid scrutiny.”
It’s troubling that the House of Lords Constitution Committee raised concerns during the inquiry that there is currently no acceptable watertight definition of what constitutional legislation actually is. The current ad hoc process of identifying which bills to take on the Floor of the House of Commons in a Committee of the whole House lacks transparency: it is clear that differentiation is taking place in order to decide which bills are to be considered by a Committee of the whole House, but the decision-making process is “unclear.” The very worrying response:
“The Government does not accept that it would be helpful to seek to define “constitutional” legislation, nor that it should automatically be subject to a different standard of scrutiny. The tests suggested by Lord Norton and the list of characteristics suggested by Professor Sir John Baker are themselves subjective: whether something raises an important issue of principle, or represents a “substantial” alteration to the liberties of the subject [citizen], for example, are matters more for political rather than technical judgement.
Well no, such matters may be more for legal judgement, given the current framework of Human Rights and Equality legislation. The idea that the law is superior to the megrims of rulers is the cornerstone of English constitutional thought as it developed over the centuries. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights both refer to the Rule of Law.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, is the historic international recognition that all human beings have fundamental rights and freedoms, and it recognises that “… it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law…”
And of course there are implications for our current understanding of the word “democracy.”
Oh. There you have it: the government does seem to regard the liberty of citizens to be enclosed within their own doctrinal boundaries. Those Tory boundaries are entirely defined by partisan dogma and value-judgements, ad hoc justifications, all of which distinctly lack any coherence and rational expertise. Or independence and protection from state intrusion and abuse.
This is a government that has taken legal aid from the poorest and most vulnerable, in a move that is contrary to the very principle of equality under the law.
The Tories have turned legal aid intoan instrument of discrimination. They have tried to dismantle a vital legal protection available to the citizen – judicial review – which has been used to stop the Conservatives abusing their powers again more than once. The Tories have restricted legal aid for domestic abuse victims, welfare claimants seeking redress for wrongful state decisions, victims of medical negligence, for example.
Reflected in many Conservative proposals and actions is the clear intent on continuing to tear up British legal protections for citizens and massively bolstering the powers of the state.
The hypocrisy is evident in that this is a government which claims to pride itself on its dislike for the state. But in every meaningful way, the Tories are vastly increasing state powers and intrusive authoritarian reach.
This isn’t the first time Cameron has used this lie. We have a government that provides disproportionate and growing returns to the already wealthy, whilst imposing austerity cuts on the very poorest. How can such a government possibly claim that inequality is falling, when inequality is so fundamental to their ideology and when social inequalities are extended and perpetuated by all of their policies? It seems the standard measure of inequality is being used to mislead us into thinking that the economy is far more “inclusive’ than it is.
Anewly published reportby the Dublin-based Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) states that the UK has become the most unequal country in Europe, on the basis of income distribution and wages.
The report also says that the UK has the highest Gini coefficient of all European Union (EU) member states – and higher than that of the US. Thecoefficientis a widely used measure of the distribution of income within a nation, and is commonly used to calculate inequality.
According to analysts at Eurofound, Britain has a Gini coefficient of 0.404, whilst that of the US is 0.4. Portugal and Latvia followed the UK with Gini coefficients of 0.358 and 0.357, respectively. The average Gini index for the EU as a whole in 2011 was 0.346.
Eurofoundwas established in 1975 to contribute to the planning and design of improved living and working conditions. This role is undertaken in partnership with governments, employers, trade unions and the European Union institutions.
The report says that there was a decrease in inequality before the global crisis that was entirely due to a significant reduction in between-country wage differentials (in other words, a process of convergence in pay levels – see:Labour’s excellent record on poverty and inequality– which came to a halt, reflecting the effects of the global crash, in 2008, and then started to reverse towards the end of the period ofthis analysis, in 2011.
My friend, the British economistMichael Burke,observed that Eurofound’s study demonstrates the previous claims by David Cameron that Britain’s economy is recovering from the recession were false.
Speaking toRT on Tuesday, Mr Burke said: “The Tory government is fond of making spurious claims about Britain being the strongest economy in Europe. But the reality is that Britain under the Tories is the European capital of inequality.”
“All of the deterioration in the Gini coefficient in the EU is caused by the worsening of inequality,” he added.
“The jobs machine that David Cameron [is referring to] is in reality low-paid jobs, many of them providing unproductive services to the ultra-rich.”
The UK now has the worst Gini coefficient in the EU. Gini is the most widely accepted measure of how fairly income is distributed amongst a nation’s residents and is the standard measure of inequality. Cameron, parroting Thatcher, has claimed thatthere is no such thing as “public money,”indicating clearly that the economic enclosure that was initiated by the Tories under the guise of austerity, affecting the poorest citizens most of all, but leaving the wealthy unaffected by cuts, is going to be permanent.
A YouGov survey conducted this month and published onMonday found that most voters in the UK believe the government should prioritize tackling inequality – reducing the gap between rich and poor – over faster economic growth.
The findings, which suggest strong public support for redistribution, will complicate the debate about precisely how the Labour Party lost the general election, particularly given the Labour manifesto, outlining strongly redistributive and progressive tax policies, which had disgruntled a number of super petulant super-rich celebrities, who threatened to flounce from the UK if Labour gained office.
YouGov found that of the main parties, only Conservative supporters were significantly more likely to care about economic growth than inequality. Bearing in mind that Cameron won with 36.9% of the vote, the considerable gap between the priorities of Conservatives and those of the other parties will most likely mean a difficult five years for the prime minister.
With homelessness increasing by 55% between 2010 and 2014, whilst food bank use has surged,malnutritionandabsolute poverty, not seen in this country since before the inception of the welfare state, are becoming more commonplace, and with more draconian cutsplanned by the Toriesfor the already diminished and essential support for the poorest – many of whom are in low waged work – it’s going to be an extremely punishing five years for those already at the poorest end of the UK’s steeply hierarchical society.
Thereportfrom the OECD, a leading global think tank, shows basically that what creates and reverses growth is the exact opposite of what the current right-wing government are telling us, highlighting the truth ofEd Miliband’s comments in his speech– that the Tory austerity cuts are purely ideologically driven, and not about managing the economy at all.
Michael Gove, former Education Secretary, has been appointed Justice Secretary: he is now in charge of the Department for Justice. With this appointment, it is clear that Cameron has plans for potentially radical reform, and regards justice as an area that needs a hardened, radicaland senior Tory politician to drive through changes that are likely to be controversial.Gove does have form.
Gove’s first task is toscrap the Human Rights Act, (HRA) which was the previous Labour government’s legislation designed to supplement the European Convention on Human Rights, it came into effect in 2000. The Act makes available a remedy for breach of Convention right without the need to go to theEuropean Court of Human Rightsin Strasbourg.
As I have previously reported, the rights protected by the Act are quite basic. They include the right to life, liberty and the right to a fair trial; protection from torture and ill-treatment; freedom of speech, thought, religion, conscience and assembly; the right to free elections; the right to fair access to the country’s education system; the right NOT to be given the death penalty; the right to marry and an overarching right not to be discriminated against.
Cameron has argued that it should be repealed just 15 years after its implementation … so that he can pass another unspecified Act – a British Bill of Rights. Dismantling UK equality and human rights legislations is a long held ambition of Conservatives, and they also plan to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights.
But why would any government object to citizens being afforded such established, basic protections, which are, after all, very simple internationally shared expectations of any first world liberal democracy?
One sentence from the misleadingly titled document that outlines how the Tories plan to scrap the Human Rights Act –Protecting Human Rights in the UK, (found onpage 6 ) – is particularly chilling: “There will be a threshold below which Convention rights will not be engaged.”
Basically this means that human rights will no longer be absolute or universal – they will be subject to stipulations and caveats. The government will establish a threshold below which Convention rights will not be engaged, allowing UK courts to strike out what are deemed trivial cases.
However, the whole point of human rights is that they apply universally; that every social group is protected from political abuse, eugenics, discrimination, prejudice and oppression.
The Tories’ motivation for changing our human rights is to allow reinterpretations to work around the new legislation when they deem it necessary. The internationally agreed rights that the Tories have always seen as being open to interpretation will become much more parochial and open to subjective challenge.
The government may claim, for example, that any legal challenge is simply ‘politically motivated’. Or that cases of open discrimination or abuse as a result of government policy are merely ‘anecdotal’.
Any precedent that allows a government room for manoeuvre around basic and fundamental human rights is incredibly dangerous. Universal human rights exist to protect citizens against governments precisely for this reason – to hold those in power to account for abuse of that power.
No other country has proposed de-incorporating a human rights treaty from its law so that it can introduce a Bill of Rights. The truly disturbing aspect of Cameron’s Bill of Rights pledge is that rather than manifestly building on the HRA, it’s predicated on its denigration and repeal. One has to wonder what his discomfort with the HRA is. The Act, after all, goes towards protecting the vulnerable from neglect of duty and abuse of power of the State. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was an International response to the atrocities of World War Two and the rise of fascism and totalitarianism.
During their last term, the Tories contravened the Human Rights ofdisabled people, women andchildren. It’s clear that we have a government that regards the rights of most of the population as an inconvenience to be brushed aside. ‘Red tape’.
I also previously reported thatCameron has pledged to leave the European Convention on Human Rights.Cameron has expressed a wish to break the formal link between British courts and the European Court of Human Rights. In future Britain’s courts will no longer be required to take into account rulings from the Court in Strasbourg.
Observation of Human Rights distinguishes democratic leaders from dictators and despots. Human Rights are the bedrock of our democracy, they are universal, and are a reflection of a society’s and a governments’recognition of the equal worth of every citizens’ life. But the government have an ideology that is founded on distinctly social Darwinist principles, and have systematically devalued the lives of historically marginalised social groups. Conservatives think that the lives of ordinary ‘others’ are cheap and disposable, because they see UK citizens as a means to their own ends, based on their own priorities and eugenic ideology. What matters to the Tories is how, as citizens, we contribute to enriching the already wealthy class by providing cheap labour. We are simply reduced to statistics and units of ‘economic stock’.
These principles support economic neoliberalism and political conservatism. Class/social division is justified on the basis of “natural”inequalities among individuals, for the control of property is ludicrously claimed to be a correlate of superior and inherent moral attributes such as industriousness, temperance, and frugality. Attempts to reform society through state intervention, therefore, interfere with natural processes; unrestricted competition and defense of the status quo are in accord with biological selection, from this perspective. The poor are “unfit” and should not be supported and aided; in the struggle for existence, wealth is a sign of success. The Tories believe that some lives, therefore, “naturally” have much more value than others.
Gove, now the Justice Secretary, has previously called for hanging to be reintroduced. Writing in 1998 as aTimescolumnist, he said Britain was “wrong to abolish hanging” in the 1960s, when the death penalty was outlawed. Gove made the irrational claims that banning hanging had “led to a corruption of our criminal justice system and the erosion of all our freedoms rather than “a great liberal victory,” as it was seen at the time.
Gove made the incoherent claim that banning hanging has made punishing innocent people “more likely,” he went on to conclude that public opinion had moved in favour of reintroducing hanging and that doing so could repair the broken trust between voters and politicians. Gove said he supported the “return of the noose out of respect for democracy”, and because it would force the courts to act with “scrupulous fairness.”
This deranged, barbaric relic actually said: “Hanging may seem barbarous, but the greater barbarity lies in the slow abandonment of our common law traditions. Were I ever alone in the dock I would not want to be arraigned before our flawed tribunals, knowing my freedom could be forfeit as a result of political pressures. I would prefer a fair trial, under the shadow of the noose.”
At the beginning of the 19th century, children in Britain were punished in the same way as adults. They were even sentenced to death for petty theft. It has historically been the case that the poorest tend to be executed, and it remains true: there are no millionaires on death row. (See also: Amnesty International UK – Death penalty.)
In 1965, in the UK, Parliament passed Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act, temporarily abolishing capital punishment for murder for 5 years. The Act was then renewed in 1969, by the Labour government under Harold Wilson, making the abolition permanent.
And with the passage of Labour’s Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and their Human Rights Act 1998, the death penalty was finally officially abolished for all crimes in both civilian and military cases, also.
The Human Rights Act is to be abolished, and Cameron has pledged to withdraw from the European Convention. In case you missed the connection, repealing the Human Rights Act will make the reintroduction of capital punishment much easier. The full range of potential consequences of losing our human rights laws are truly terrifying to consider.
For those of you that have campaigned against the Labour Party, claiming that they aren’t quite “left” enough, despite the fact that Miliband was actually offering the most progressive, redistributive policiesof ALL the parties, andsmaller cuts and for less time.(I guess some of you never bothered reading the Institute of Fiscal Studies Report, or Labour’s manifesto).
Under a Labour government, our Human Rights, NHS and welfare would now be safe. The bedroom tax would now be repealed. We would be rebuilding and making progress as a society instead of regressing and fearfully discussing the threats of tyranny and the possibility of the reintroduction of capital punishment.
We are about to lose everything that made us a civilised first-world country, from our human rights to our post-war democratic settlement: welfare, our National Health Service and what remains of our access to legal aid. I predict that by 2020, this undermining of the fabric of our society: the mechanisms that make us civilised, will be almost undone. The loss of democratic safeguards will affect many more citizens, and it will become much more evident that the Conservatives are the most corrupt, authoritarian and nationalist government that the UK has known for many generations.
Until the people of this country take some responsibility and demand that politics is based on truth and the needs of the majority, we will continue to have a corrupt authoritarian elite serving only the wants of the 1%.
Love and solidarity to all my comrades, who are mutually grieving a future we have lost, and who acknowledge and face the losses yet to come. Stay brave and true.
It’s never been more important to help each other through, and we really are going to need to.
It is easier than ever before for those with vested interests to spread disinformation on vital matters of public interest. It’s happening every day.
If you want to know what’s really going on, you need to hear from those willing to dig down to the truth. I don’t get paid for my work, and I don’t make any money from advertising. I can’t do this vital work unless readers donate to help me cover costs.
Additionally, I have two degenerative illnesses, which are very painful and have had a steady impact on my mobility, and level of dexterity in my hands, wrists and all of my other joints. Typing is difficult, but I am currently exploring aids and appliances to make the task easier.
I suffer from lupus – which is currently managed with medications – and I was recently given an additional diagnosis of ehlers danlos syndrome (EDS), after years of very painful, unstable joints that pop out of place easily. The diagnosis was in February. All of my appointments were cancelled subsequently, because of the coronavirus. My next rheumatology appointment – usually every 3 months – is now in February 2021. It’s a phone call. I also had weekly physiotherapy appointments, also cancelled. So I’m left with managing my new condition, like many others, without valuable support at the moment.
Please consider making a donation. That ensures I can continue to research, write independent articles and support others facing the injustices of Conservative anti-welfare policies. I support people going through ESA and PIPassessments and appeals, which is an essential lifeline for many people. I can only continue doing that if I can manage my own medical conditions and the disabilities they have, and continue, to cause.
1. Longest period of sustained low inflation since the 60s. 2. Low mortgage rates. 3. Introduced the National Minimum Wage and raised it to £5.52 per hour. 4. Over 14,000 more police in England and Wales. 5. Cut overall crime by 32 per cent. 6. Record levels of literacy and numeracy in schools. 7. Young people achieving some of the best ever results at 14, 16, and 18. 8. Funding for every pupil in England has doubled. 9. Employment is at its highest level ever. 10. 3,700 rebuilt and significantly refurbished schools; including new and improved classrooms, laboratories and kitchens. 11. 85,000 more nurses. 12. 32,000 more doctors. 13. Brought back matrons to hospital wards. 14. Devolved power to the Scottish Parliament. 15. Devolved power to the Welsh Assembly. 16. Dads now get paternity leave of 2 weeks for the first time. 17. NHS Direct offering free convenient patient advice. 18. Gift aid was worth £828 million to charities last year. 19. Restored city-wide government to London. 20. Record number of students in higher education. 21. Child benefit up 26 per cent since 1997. 22. Delivered 2,200 Sure Start Children’s Centres. 23. Introduced the Equality and Human Rights Commission. 24. £200 winter fuel payment to pensioners & up to £300 for over-80s. 25. On course to exceed our Kyoto target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. 26. Restored devolved government to Northern Ireland. 27. Over 36,000 more teachers in England and 274,000 more support staff and teaching assistants. 28. All full time workers now have a right to 24 days paid holiday. 29. A million pensioners lifted out of poverty. 30. The Child Poverty Act – 600,000 children lifted out of relative poverty. 31. Introduced child tax credit giving more money to parents. 32. Scrapped Section 28 and introduced Civil Partnerships. 33. Brought over 1 million social homes up to standard. 34. Inpatient waiting lists down by over half a million since 1997: the shortest waiting times since NHS records began. 35. Banned fox hunting. 36. Cleanest rivers, beaches, drinking water and air since before the industrial revolution. 37. Free TV licences for over-75s. 38. Banned fur farming and the testing of cosmetics on animals. 39. Free breast cancer screening for all women aged between 50-70. 40. Free off peak local bus travel for over-60s and disabled people. 41. New Deal – helped over 1.8 million people into work. 42. Over 3 million child trust funds started. 43. Free eye test for over 60s. 44. More than doubled the number of apprenticeships. 45. Free entry to national museums and galleries. 46. Overseas aid budget more than doubled. 47. Heart disease deaths down by 150,000 and cancer deaths down by 50,000. 48. Cut long-term youth unemployment by 75 per cent. 49. Free nursery places for every three and four-year-olds. 50. Free fruit for most four to six-year-olds at school. 51. Gender Recognition Act 2004/5 52. Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland. 53. Walk-in Health Centres and GP out of hours Service. 54. Digital hearing aids, through the NHS. 55. Children’s Act 2004, 2008 – Every Child Matters. 56. Introduced Smoke–Free legislation, 2007 – child health improving continually since. 57. Retail Distribution Review – ending commission for financial advisers 58. Introduced legislation to make company ‘blacklisting’ unlawful. 59. The Equality Act. 60. Established the Disability Rights Commission in 1999. 61. The Human Rights Act. 62. Signed the European Social Chapter. 63. Launched £1.5 billion Housing Pledge of new affordable housing. 64. The Autism Act 2009. 65. New Deal for Communities Regeneration Programme. 66. All prescriptions free for people being treated for cancer or the effects of cancer. 67. Introduced vaccination to be offered to teenage girls to protect against cervical cancer. 68. Rough sleeping dropped by two thirds and homelessness at its lowest level since the early 1980s 69. 2009 Marine and Coastal Access Act. 70. Increased Britain’s offshore wind capacity than any country in the world, to provide enough electricity to power 2 million homes. 71. Led the campaign to win the 2012 Olympics for London. 72. Introduced the first ever British Armed Forces and Veterans Day to honour past and present achievements of our armed forces. 73. Created a new right of pedestrian access, so that every family has equal opportunity to access the national coastline. 74. Led the campaign to agree a new international convention banning all cluster munitions. 75. Launched the Swimming Challenge Fund to support free swimming for over 60s and under 16s. 76. Sustainable Communities Act – created community safety partnerships. 77. Set up a dedicated Department for International Development. 78. Cancelled approximately 100 per cent of debt for the world’s poorest countries. 79. Helped lift 3 million people out of poverty each year, globally. 80. Helped to get 40 million more children into school, globally. 81. Worked to ensure polio is on the verge of being eradicated, globally. 82. Ensured 3 million people are now able to access life-preserving drugs for HIV and AIDS. 83. Improved water/sanitation services for over 1.5 million people. 84. Launched a Governance and Transparency Fund to improve governance and increase accountability in poor countries. 85. The Neighbourhood Renewal programme – introduced funding for neighbourhood improvements. 86. The Extending Schools Program – included Breakfast and Homework clubs to improved levels of educational achievement and the longer term life chances of disadvantaged children. 87. Launched the Connexions Service – provided valuable careers advice and support to young people seeking employment. 88. Introduced Working Family Tax credits to support low paid parents in work and to pay for childcare. 89. Introduced the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) 90. Established The Future Jobs Fund to provide all young people access to a job, training or education. 91. Introduced Warm Front – helped 2.3 million vulnerable households, those in fuel poverty, with energy efficiency improvements. 92. Guaranteed paid holidays – introduced a law to ensure that everyone who works is entitled to a minimum paid holiday of 5.6 weeks, 93. Introduced the right to request flexible working. 94. Introduced improved work hours – introduced a law so employers cannot force employees to work more than 48 hours a week. 95. Protection against unfair dismissal – introduced protections for workers and increased the maximum compensation from £12,000 to around £63,000. 96. Introduced Rights for Part-time workers – the right to equal pay rates, pension rights, pro-rata holidays and sick pay. 97. Introduced the Right to breaks at work 98. Introduced the Right to representation – every worker can be a member of a trade union and be represented in grievance and disciplinary hearings. 99. Rights for parents and carers – introduced the right to time off to deal with unexpected problems for their dependants, such as illness. 100. Introduced literacy and numeracy hours in schools and extended diversity to the curriculum. 101. Reduced class sizes to 30 for 5-7 year old children. 102. Introduced a public interest test, allowing governments to block international business takeovers on three specific grounds: media plurality, national security or financial stability.
103. Introduced the (anti-)Bribery Act 2010
104. Established the Standards Board for England under Labour’s Local Government Act 2000 for promoting and ensuring high ethical standards and code of conduct in local government. 105. Introduced the first ever Climate Change Act 2008.
106. Introduced robust an comprehensive child protection and welfare measures through Every Child Matters policy.
1- 50 were originally listed in the Telegraph. However, I recognised that some of Labour’s best achievements were not included, so I gathered the rest together over couple of years for this compilation.
Where Labour policies are cited, I have researched and verified them to ensure that the list accurate. You can find them listed on
By Private Eye Political Correspondent Noah Surprise.
“We feel utterly betrayed by the Tories,” said another father, who is having his family working tax credits slashed.
Courtesy of Robert Livingstone
Many thanks to 
Politics and Insights 