Tory government doesn't like human rights - unless it can choose who gets them

The row over who will pay your pension after independence and the issues raised in a raft of new policy publications on Scotland and Europe emphasise how important it is that the Scottish Government gets its ducks in a row for the referendum which has been promised next year.

These issues will remain central no matter who is prime minister so it’s important not to get too fixated on Boris Johnson. The question now is not whether he goes but when. My information is that the Tories will hold on to him until after the May elections to make sure he takes the rap for any seat losses as well as other current problems such as the frightening rise in the cost of living. So we should expect another Tory leadership election campaign over the summer.

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The consequences of Johnson’s Jimmy Savile smear on Keir Starmer rightly received widespread condemnation this week. However, the PM is not the only leading politician who needs to learn that when you put a target on the back of those who dare to challenge you, you risk giving a green light to thugs. Actions have consequences.

In recent years many women have faced the same sort of harassment on our streets as that faced by the Labour leader when we have tried to attend conferences organised by groups who wish to defend women’s rights, or the rights of same-sex attracted people.

Twice last year when attending conferences organised by Women’s Place UK and LGB Alliance I had to run the gauntlet of angry and in some cases abusive men’s and trans rights activists – on one occasion accompanied by one a fellow MP – seeking to prevent those with whom they disagree from organising.

This is the ugly face of the new misogyny and homophobia in our society but it is also symptomatic of an intolerance of reasoned debate which is poisoning our politics.

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We need to remember that human rights are universal. When the Equalities and Human Rights Commission came under attack last week from some trans rights groups for daring to meet with women’s and LGB campaign groups and to take cognisance of their concerns, they rightly reminded their detractors that human rights legislation exists to protect and promote the rights of everyone.

I was further reminded of that this week when chairing the latest session of the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) inquiry into the UK Government’s plans to “reform” the Human Rights Act (HRA). Lately, the focus of my parliamentary work has been this committee because I have had to step up from deputy chair to chair in the absence of our permanent chair, Harriet Harman QC MP, who is on bereavement leave after the sudden death of her much-loved and respected husband, the eminent trade unionist Jack Dromey MP.

The current Tory government doesn’t like human rights very much unless it can stipulate who should and should not enjoy them. That’s why I find it particularly concerning when people who purport to be on the left of our politics or progressive try to create a hierarchy of rights in which, surprisingly enough, women and LGB people often find themselves at the bottom. Everyone who lives in our country or under our law should enjoy the same rights.

Some of the Tories dislike this idea so much that they want to take us out of the European Convention on Human Rights even though lawyers from Britain and indeed Scotland were instrumental in drafting it and the UK has been a signatory since the 1950s.

When former PM Theresa May embraced leaving the ECHR she gave a ludicrous conference speech in which she alleged that an illegal immigrant avoided deportation because of his pet cat. In actual fact the man won his case because the Home Office had ignored its own immigration rules on unmarried couples.

Then Priti Patel claimed that “activist lawyers” were frustrating the removal of migrants from this country. Days later an immigration solicitor was the subject of a violent racist attack at a London law firm, and the Law Society of England and Wales wrote to the Home Secretary, warning her that inflammatory rhetoric has consequences. But of course Boris Johnson doubled down, saying there was a problem with “lefty lawyers” or “activist lawyers” “hamstringing” the justice system.

The reality is that the HRA, as Labour promised in 1998, has “brought rights home”, giving all sorts of people a means to claim justice they would not otherwise have had. Before the HRA the rights protected by the ECHR could not be accessed in our domestic courts and people faced long and expensive fights to get their case heard in Strasbourg. Without the HRA, the Hillsborough inquests would not have been re-opened and the full scale of the sex crimes of taxi rapist John Worboys would not have been investigated by police.

Long before the Equality Act, legislation on tenancy and inheritance rights was interpreted by the courts using the HRA to recognise same-sex couples as next of kin, thus delivering fundamental rights to LGB people who until then had been marginalised from the enjoyment of the same rights as heterosexual people.

The terms of the UK’s departure from the EU mean that if the UK leaves the ECHR, the EU will withdraw co-operation on data protection, crime and security matters.

This is a problem for Tory plans to diminish the power of Parliament and the courts to hold the executive to account. It’s also a problem for a lot of the bills they are currently taking through Parliament which seek to curtail the rights of immigrants, refugees, voters and those who wish to take to our streets to protest.

If the HRA remains on the statute book in its current form, there will be a raft of challenges to this legislation. So the Tories need to find a way of staying in the ECHR but making it more difficult for people living in the UK to access the rights it protects. They plan to do this by rendering the HRA “toothless and useless”.

These are not my words but the words of Francesca Klug, OBE and visiting professor of human rights at the LSE who was one of the architects of the HRA. Earlier this month she gave a brilliant lecture on the HRA which you can access at www.brexitspotlight.org/video-is-the-human-rights-act-at-risk-a-brexit-spotlight-60-minute-briefing

Last year the Government commissioned an Independent Review of the HRA (IRHRA). A huge amount of work went into it, and it reported at length, concluding that little change to the HRA was required or merited. However, instead of responding to that report as one might have expected, the Government has now produced a further consultation document with its own radical proposals to amend the act, most of which lack an evidence base and were rejected by the IRHRA.

I cannot predict what the JCHR will say in our report once we complete our inquiry but I can tell you that the majority of our witnesses so far have been highly critical of what the government is up to and in our last report on the HRA we concluded it was working well.

There are also substantial concerns that any so-called reform should not be pushed through without adequate consultation with the devolved governments.

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As was reported in The National yesterday, earlier this week Mike Russell visited Westminster to brief SNP MPs on the work of his independence unit. I understand that a transitional constitution for Scotland has now been prepared.

If I was to be consulted on its contents, I would stress the importance of ensuring universal human rights continue to be protected by means of incorporating the ECHR in a Scottish Bill of Rights.

I would also stress that any transitional constitution must be just that and a clear timetable and perhaps more importantly a process must be established for its replacement. The contents of the constitution of an independent Scotland and the extent of its rights protections must be a discussion for all the people of Scotland, not just a select few.