A short thread on why I am dubious that the government can lawfully impose charges on travellers entering the UK for quarantine and testing (proposed at £1,750 and £210)

1/

This is a thread on human rights and the Coronavirus.

It will be a mixture of discussion, ideas and links and I will try to keep adding to it as things progress (THREAD)

I have been thinking about how human rights values and laws can help us traverse the next few months of deep crisis - across the planet.

We could 'suspend' or ignore human rights as a 'peace time nicety' as has happened in the past.

But to do so would be a huge error /1

As a preliminary, it is really, really important to understand that looking at the potential response to Coronavirus through a human rights lens does not generate any easy answers. I’m not going to offer any. /2

Another preliminary: as with response to terrorism (there are similarities here) it is natural that when people are frightened, critical voices raising ‘niceties’ like individual rights are seen as annoying and beside the point. They. Are. Not. We know that from history. /3

What can human rights offer? Well, for one thing this is exactly the kind of crisis which the modern human rights system was designed for.

I’m going to start with the general and then move onto the specific /4

Here is the terms of reference and panel for the "Independent Review of the Human Rights Act"

Some initial thoughts

Terms of reference:

- Entirely expected that the "take into account" duty, which has been interpreted by the UK courts as a duty to follow the European Court of Human Rights where it has clearly and constantly taken a particular line, is under review...

"The impact of the HRA on the relationship between the judiciary, executive and Parliament, and whether domestic courts are being unduly drawn into areas of policy"

This is such a diffuse and difficult question to answer and ultimately depends on your definition of "policy"...

The framing of the question gives lie to this being a neutral 20-year "review". It's not, because the government plainly wants the outcome to be a finding that the HRA has led to courts "unduly" being drawn into areas of "policy"

There will be certain members of the panel, e.g. Sir Stephen Laws of the Judicial Power Project, who will argue strongly that the HRA has led to courts being "unduly" drawn into areas of policy.

A short personal reflection on what happened yesterday.

I wanted to wait a bit before saying this as I think yesterday was for those who experienced the sharpest end of the disastrous breakdown between the Labour Party and Jewish people during the past 5 years.

I started talking about Labour antisemitism here in 2017 I think. My key aim was to try and act as a bridge between the left of the Jewish community and the left of the Labour Party. I used my platform on social media to do it and quite quickly I developed some back channels...

... to who I thought were sensible people in Jeremy Corbyn's office and Momentum. I kept those channels going for quite a long time. I found this paragraph from emails I exchanged in Spring 2018 with Laura Murray in Corbyn's office. It now seems quite prescient.

As I delved more into the issues and heard, privately, what was going on in the movement itself, I slowly and regrettably came to the conclusion that the issue was so serious it needed an "independent body" to come in. It was in Autumn 2018 that @antisemitism approached me...

... to assist in making a submission to the @EHRC to try and persuade them to enter the fray. I was skeptical, given the the UK's human rights organisations had stayed almost entirely silent (to this day, to their shame) on the issue, though I knew it was utterly necessary...

There's a tragic irony to Johnson's love of Churchill.

When Churchill became prime minister, he said: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat". He was honest about the severity of the situation and what it entailed. He didn't pretend everything would magically be alright.

Johnson's approach is the exact opposite. He runs from bad news like a dog from fireworks. He invents nonsense timetables by which everything will be fine.

He assumes the public need constant good news and sacrifices his own trustworthiness in order to provide it - it'll be over in six weeks, by Easter, by summer, by Christmas, by February, whatever.

It's equivalent to Churchill using his first speech as PM to insist the war will be over by Christmas.

If anyone's thinking to spend the weekend fantasising about a left split from Labour, here's an updated summary of why it's crazy ... 1/ Labour is the only route to a left government in Britain. Even Podemos ended up in power as junior partners to PSOE...

2/ 56% support for Scottish independence and Labour on 13% in Holyrood polls mean 2024 is the last chance saloon. If Scotland is out of the UK there'll have to be something akin to the US Democrats, or Popular Front in 36 - until the demographics change

3/ The culture/values conflict is unavoidable and will be intensified inside any left party. Trans rights, migration, Brexit - all the issues that divide the Labour left would divide anything to the left of it: so then there'd be two left alternatives...

4/ What we need is an organised left alliance in the Labour Party - bigger than the SCG and Momentum and based around policy and activism... instead we get the self-defeating project of disaffiliating Unite slice by slice...

5/ The scale of the Covid and climate crises mean even traditional social-democrats are having to re-think - just as French liberals did in the 1930s. That means an anti-capitalist left in Labour has to engage constructively...

A short personal reflection on what happened yesterday.

I wanted to wait a bit before saying this as I think yesterday was for those who experienced the sharpest end of the disastrous breakdown between the Labour Party and Jewish people during the past 5 years.

I started talking about Labour antisemitism here in 2017 I think. My key aim was to try and act as a bridge between the left of the Jewish community and the left of the Labour Party. I used my platform on social media to do it and quite quickly I developed some back channels...

... to who I thought were sensible people in Jeremy Corbyn's office and Momentum. I kept those channels going for quite a long time. I found this paragraph from emails I exchanged in Spring 2018 with Laura Murray in Corbyn's office. It now seems quite prescient.

As I delved more into the issues and heard, privately, what was going on in the movement itself, I slowly and regrettably came to the conclusion that the issue was so serious it needed an "independent body" to come in. It was in Autumn 2018 that @antisemitism approached me...

... to assist in making a submission to the @EHRC to try and persuade them to enter the fray. I was skeptical, given the the UK's human rights organisations had stayed almost entirely silent (to this day, to their shame) on the issue, though I knew it was utterly necessary...

1/ Some EU frustration at UK griping over trade problems and suggestions Brussels needs to improve its attitude to make the relationship work better. There's a feeling of déjà vu, that the UK never really accepted the practical reality of the deal it wanted and still doesn't.

2/ In particular there's exasperation that the UK is moaning about the deal not including arrangements that it ruled out itself to keep its own red lines intact. It's seen as a pattern of behaviour - first there was visa-free travel for musicians, now it's shellfish.

3/ EU sources say the lack of provisions on shellfish exports was brought up numerous times in the talks as a concern. But the UK refused to engage, as it did on wider SPS issues, over fears of 'being drawn into the EU's regulatory sphere'.

4/ The EU has rules vis-a-vis third countries, they say, and the UK knew this. Indeed, as they see things it's the British attitude that needs a reset. 'The problem is it wants to be a better third country than others, and that’s not an option.'

5/ That's seen as particularly rich after the UK turned down the EU's offer for a much closer relationship in pursuit of a 'Canada-style' one. Recent complaints perpetuate concerns the UK still hasn't really come to terms with the sovereignty/access trade-off.