ECHR withdrawal in 2022? – politicalbetting.com
Comments
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The point well made by your post is that our domestic courts are bound by domestic law and the principle of Parliamentary sovereignty ties their hands. International conventions are designed to give an external check on that principle by imposing minimum standards. Domestic courts cannot do that. If we repealed the abolition of the death penalty our courts have to dust down their old black caps.Cyclefree said:I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote?
2. If not, why not?
3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok?
4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK?
5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
OTOH is it really conceivable, in the democratic era, that we would ever seek to exclude a racial minority? Can we not trust ourselves and our political class to not do such a thing? And, if we can't, how many divisions does the ECtHR have?1 -
🔴 Boris Johnson has been reportedly "airbrushed" from the Conservatives' by-election campaign literature, with leaflets and online advertisements not mentioning the Prime Minister https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/06/19/boris-johnson-airbrushed-tory-by-election-campaign-leaflets/?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_content=politics&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1655643686-20
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This might be a problem in a General Election...Scott_xP said:🔴 Boris Johnson has been reportedly "airbrushed" from the Conservatives' by-election campaign literature, with leaflets and online advertisements not mentioning the Prime Minister https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/06/19/boris-johnson-airbrushed-tory-by-election-campaign-leaflets/?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_content=politics&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1655643686-2
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We have left the democratic era, we are now in the outrage era.DavidL said:
The point well made by your post is that our domestic courts are bound by domestic law and the principle of Parliamentary sovereignty ties their hands. International conventions are designed to give an external check on that principle by imposing minimum standards. Domestic courts cannot do that. If we repealed the abolition of the death penalty our courts have to dust down their old black caps.Cyclefree said:I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote?
2. If not, why not?
3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok?
4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK?
5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
OTOH is it really conceivable, in the democratic era, that we would ever seek to exclude a racial minority? Can we not trust ourselves and our political class to not do such a thing? And, if we can't, how many divisions does the ECtHR have?0 -
If we don't trust our political class or populus not to do that without the ECtHR, we shouldn't really trust them to not do it with the ECtHR either.DavidL said:
The point well made by your post is that our domestic courts are bound by domestic law and the principle of Parliamentary sovereignty ties their hands. International conventions are designed to give an external check on that principle by imposing minimum standards. Domestic courts cannot do that. If we repealed the abolition of the death penalty our courts have to dust down their old black caps.Cyclefree said:I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote?
2. If not, why not?
3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok?
4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK?
5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
OTOH is it really conceivable, in the democratic era, that we would ever seek to exclude a racial minority? Can we not trust ourselves and our political class to not do such a thing? And, if we can't, how many divisions does the ECtHR have?
But occasional judicial overstep causing some procedural or political inconvenience is not exactly a compelling reason to just not bother with the whole thing either.1 -
I agree he is no Margaret Thatcher.CorrectHorseBattery said:
You'd have a fair point but we have Johnson as PM and I don't trust himFishing said:
Obviously absurd. The ECHR is the origin of all our human rights. Those other English-speaking Parliamentary democracies Australia, New Zealand and Canada aren't in the ECHR and they are notorious totalitarian tyrannies, as we were before 1950.Andy_JS said:Lord Sumption in today's Sunday Times says we could leave the ECHR without any problems as far as are our commitment to human rights is concerned.
But there are plenty of constraints on a Prime Minister's arbitrary power in this country - he is not the President of Russia, or even of France or the United States. The most obvious is that he can do nothing if a majority of MPs object. Then there is the Lords which can delay non-money bills for a while. Then there is the public that he has to carry with him. And there are lesser checks such as the Queen's theoretical veto and the power of powerful interest groups to obstruct.
And if we want yet more constraints, I'm not convinced that the solution is an unelected, unaccountable foreign court. A domestic bill of rights, or even a codified Constitution might be more appropriate (though, in practice, the difficulties of devising the latter type of document means that it will probably never happen).1 -
What with Arcuri and Lebedev and Carrie4CoS what right do we have to laugh at anyone about anything?kle4 said:
If there are places where pretty much every president is eventually conivicted or impeached for corruption I wonder if that is both good and bad, in that at least they keep trying to convict peopel for that behaviour, even if they are all at it.Malmesbury said:
Columbian politics is remarkably like Peruvian politics - it's not so much the corruption, as the combination of Idiocracy level stupidity with incompetent corruption.gettingbetter said:Is anyone else on here following the Colombian presidential election?
The second round is today. The broad left candidate, Gustavo Petro, got 40% in the first round , with the second placed pseudo independent, Rodolfo Hernández, standing as an anti-corruption candidate, 12 points behind at 28%. The dismal candidate of the governing right wing kleptocratic party scored just 24%.
The 77 year old misogynist businessman made his fortune constructing unsafe houses sold on usurious finance terms to poor people. He is astonishingly ignorant, and although he has been compared to Donald Trump, though he makes the latter look like a genius. Hernandez famously claimed to be a follower of Adolf Hitler, apparently confusing him with the similarly named Albert Einstein, and had never heard of Vichada, one of the 32 Colombian departments (like US states). And you could not make this up: this saintly anti-corruption candidate has dozens of legal cases running against him for embezzlement and breaches of employment laws, involving his construction business and family members whilst he was mayor of Bucaramanga, and the one of them is due to be heard on 21st July.
Anyway despite all this the governing party has thrown all its efforts to switch its support to Hernandez to prevent Colombia’s first left-wing president. So much so that the national registrar (i.e. electoral commission), in a superb display of impartisanship, has publicly told Petro that he has to respect the result of the election.
SMarkets has Hernández around 65% chance to win, to Petro’s 35%. Which is unfortunate, because if ever a country is crying out for a dose of socialism and decent government, it is Colombia.
I very much hope the market is wrong and have bet accordingly.
They can't even steal money well....0 -
Who was laughing at it? Not me.IshmaelZ said:
What with Arcuri and Lebedev and Carrie4CoS what right do we have to laugh at anyone about anything?kle4 said:
If there are places where pretty much every president is eventually conivicted or impeached for corruption I wonder if that is both good and bad, in that at least they keep trying to convict peopel for that behaviour, even if they are all at it.Malmesbury said:
Columbian politics is remarkably like Peruvian politics - it's not so much the corruption, as the combination of Idiocracy level stupidity with incompetent corruption.gettingbetter said:Is anyone else on here following the Colombian presidential election?
The second round is today. The broad left candidate, Gustavo Petro, got 40% in the first round , with the second placed pseudo independent, Rodolfo Hernández, standing as an anti-corruption candidate, 12 points behind at 28%. The dismal candidate of the governing right wing kleptocratic party scored just 24%.
The 77 year old misogynist businessman made his fortune constructing unsafe houses sold on usurious finance terms to poor people. He is astonishingly ignorant, and although he has been compared to Donald Trump, though he makes the latter look like a genius. Hernandez famously claimed to be a follower of Adolf Hitler, apparently confusing him with the similarly named Albert Einstein, and had never heard of Vichada, one of the 32 Colombian departments (like US states). And you could not make this up: this saintly anti-corruption candidate has dozens of legal cases running against him for embezzlement and breaches of employment laws, involving his construction business and family members whilst he was mayor of Bucaramanga, and the one of them is due to be heard on 21st July.
Anyway despite all this the governing party has thrown all its efforts to switch its support to Hernandez to prevent Colombia’s first left-wing president. So much so that the national registrar (i.e. electoral commission), in a superb display of impartisanship, has publicly told Petro that he has to respect the result of the election.
SMarkets has Hernández around 65% chance to win, to Petro’s 35%. Which is unfortunate, because if ever a country is crying out for a dose of socialism and decent government, it is Colombia.
I very much hope the market is wrong and have bet accordingly.
They can't even steal money well....0 -
It’s the PRINCIPLEkle4 said:
People go a bit far with the claims of what would would happen without the ECHR, and I think that does not help the case against the government's intentions (or at least possible intention, which they are floating to see how it goes). Nor does every nominal signatory act well all the time, so it is not as though it ensures it - if we do not trust government x to do y, it is not greatly affected by some procedure or law saying they should do y.Fishing said:
Obviously absurd. The ECHR is the origin of all our human rights. Those other English-speaking Parliamentary democracies Australia, New Zealand and Canada aren't in the ECHR and they are notorious totalitarian tyrannies, as we were before 1950.Andy_JS said:Lord Sumption in today's Sunday Times says we could leave the ECHR without any problems as far as are our commitment to human rights is concerned.
Nevertheless, the benefits of such a move are not particularly apparent, being principally theoretical. Are the problems of the ECHR really so fundamental that it is worth the hassle and aggravations leaving it would cause? Or is it merely that governments do not like court rulings they disagree with sometimes?
The democratic balance between judiciary and executive is a delicate but profound thing. Each should check the other.
A foreign court sitting in a foreign country with foreign judges cannot be democratically checked by the UK executive. It is a constitutional absurdity
We have a Supreme Court in the UK. Let it be Supreme
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Hardly anyone sane has given a fig about the ECHR for decades, but then Boris faces a leadership crisis and suddenly he and his extrusions are banging on about scrapping it. This scares me. What's behind it? What does Boris have planned in the wake of its scrapping? We have every reason to be fearful.4
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Headed up by Diana Ross ?Leon said:
It’s the PRINCIPLEkle4 said:
People go a bit far with the claims of what would would happen without the ECHR, and I think that does not help the case against the government's intentions (or at least possible intention, which they are floating to see how it goes). Nor does every nominal signatory act well all the time, so it is not as though it ensures it - if we do not trust government x to do y, it is not greatly affected by some procedure or law saying they should do y.Fishing said:
Obviously absurd. The ECHR is the origin of all our human rights. Those other English-speaking Parliamentary democracies Australia, New Zealand and Canada aren't in the ECHR and they are notorious totalitarian tyrannies, as we were before 1950.Andy_JS said:Lord Sumption in today's Sunday Times says we could leave the ECHR without any problems as far as are our commitment to human rights is concerned.
Nevertheless, the benefits of such a move are not particularly apparent, being principally theoretical. Are the problems of the ECHR really so fundamental that it is worth the hassle and aggravations leaving it would cause? Or is it merely that governments do not like court rulings they disagree with sometimes?
The democratic balance between judiciary and executive is a delicate but profound thing. Each should check the other.
A foreign court sitting in a foreign country with foreign judges cannot be democratically checked by the UK executive. It is a constitutional absurdity
We have a Supreme Court in the UK. Let it be Supreme
Where are you at the moment on your travels, BtW ?1 -
So are you wanting to expand the powers of our Supreme Court? As it cannot be a check on the executive at the moment in the way many might assume it can, given what institutions like the US Supreme Court can do.Leon said:
It’s the PRINCIPLEkle4 said:
People go a bit far with the claims of what would would happen without the ECHR, and I think that does not help the case against the government's intentions (or at least possible intention, which they are floating to see how it goes). Nor does every nominal signatory act well all the time, so it is not as though it ensures it - if we do not trust government x to do y, it is not greatly affected by some procedure or law saying they should do y.Fishing said:
Obviously absurd. The ECHR is the origin of all our human rights. Those other English-speaking Parliamentary democracies Australia, New Zealand and Canada aren't in the ECHR and they are notorious totalitarian tyrannies, as we were before 1950.Andy_JS said:Lord Sumption in today's Sunday Times says we could leave the ECHR without any problems as far as are our commitment to human rights is concerned.
Nevertheless, the benefits of such a move are not particularly apparent, being principally theoretical. Are the problems of the ECHR really so fundamental that it is worth the hassle and aggravations leaving it would cause? Or is it merely that governments do not like court rulings they disagree with sometimes?
The democratic balance between judiciary and executive is a delicate but profound thing. Each should check the other.
A foreign court sitting in a foreign country with foreign judges cannot be democratically checked by the UK executive. It is a constitutional absurdity
We have a Supreme Court in the UK. Let it be Supreme
Are we wanting a court to have the kind of power or not? As I think the anti-ECHR move is divided on that point.1 -
A new bit of polling to add to the analysis - Rwanda policy low down the list of things that matters to voters. Behind cost of living, NHS backlogs, and climate change.
https://twitter.com/samfr/status/15385281141831270460 -
When talking of police corruption in various places, it should be noted that at the hight of the power of the various Cartel drug lords, in various countries, policemen were arresting *the drug lords* and their side kicks on a fairly regular basis.kle4 said:
If there are places where pretty much every president is eventually conivicted or impeached for corruption I wonder if that is both good and bad, in that at least they keep trying to convict peopel for that behaviour, even if they are all at it.Malmesbury said:
Columbian politics is remarkably like Peruvian politics - it's not so much the corruption, as the combination of Idiocracy level stupidity with incompetent corruption.gettingbetter said:Is anyone else on here following the Colombian presidential election?
The second round is today. The broad left candidate, Gustavo Petro, got 40% in the first round , with the second placed pseudo independent, Rodolfo Hernández, standing as an anti-corruption candidate, 12 points behind at 28%. The dismal candidate of the governing right wing kleptocratic party scored just 24%.
The 77 year old misogynist businessman made his fortune constructing unsafe houses sold on usurious finance terms to poor people. He is astonishingly ignorant, and although he has been compared to Donald Trump, though he makes the latter look like a genius. Hernandez famously claimed to be a follower of Adolf Hitler, apparently confusing him with the similarly named Albert Einstein, and had never heard of Vichada, one of the 32 Colombian departments (like US states). And you could not make this up: this saintly anti-corruption candidate has dozens of legal cases running against him for embezzlement and breaches of employment laws, involving his construction business and family members whilst he was mayor of Bucaramanga, and the one of them is due to be heard on 21st July.
Anyway despite all this the governing party has thrown all its efforts to switch its support to Hernandez to prevent Colombia’s first left-wing president. So much so that the national registrar (i.e. electoral commission), in a superb display of impartisanship, has publicly told Petro that he has to respect the result of the election.
SMarkets has Hernández around 65% chance to win, to Petro’s 35%. Which is unfortunate, because if ever a country is crying out for a dose of socialism and decent government, it is Colombia.
I very much hope the market is wrong and have bet accordingly.
They can't even steal money well....0 -
That really isn’t true. Teresa May (OK not entirely sane but still) was keen to leave the ECHR before Brexit. The issue has been with us for many yearsStark_Dawning said:Hardly anyone sane has given a fig about the ECHR for decades, but then Boris faces a leadership crisis and suddenly he and his extrusions are banging on about scrapping it. This scares me. What's behind it? What does Boris have planned in the wake of its scrapping? We have every reason to be fearful.
As someone said on a prior thread, given that you can’t be in the EU without singing up to the ECHR perhaps - before Brexit - submission to this court was a tolerable price to pay for the Single Market etc. I can see that argument
But now we’re out of the EU there is no necessity for us to submit to the ECHR, so we shouldn’t0 -
I'm all welled up over Boris's appreciation of the delicate but profound balance between the judiciary and executive.Leon said:
It’s the PRINCIPLEkle4 said:
People go a bit far with the claims of what would would happen without the ECHR, and I think that does not help the case against the government's intentions (or at least possible intention, which they are floating to see how it goes). Nor does every nominal signatory act well all the time, so it is not as though it ensures it - if we do not trust government x to do y, it is not greatly affected by some procedure or law saying they should do y.Fishing said:
Obviously absurd. The ECHR is the origin of all our human rights. Those other English-speaking Parliamentary democracies Australia, New Zealand and Canada aren't in the ECHR and they are notorious totalitarian tyrannies, as we were before 1950.Andy_JS said:Lord Sumption in today's Sunday Times says we could leave the ECHR without any problems as far as are our commitment to human rights is concerned.
Nevertheless, the benefits of such a move are not particularly apparent, being principally theoretical. Are the problems of the ECHR really so fundamental that it is worth the hassle and aggravations leaving it would cause? Or is it merely that governments do not like court rulings they disagree with sometimes?
The democratic balance between judiciary and executive is a delicate but profound thing. Each should check the other.
A foreign court sitting in a foreign country with foreign judges cannot be democratically checked by the UK executive. It is a constitutional absurdity
We have a Supreme Court in the UK. Let it be Supreme6 -
There's no necessity for us to 'submit' to the Geneva Convention. Should we pull out of that too?Leon said:
That really isn’t true. Teresa May (OK not entirely sane but still) was keen to leave the ECHR before Brexit. The issue has been with us for many yearsStark_Dawning said:Hardly anyone sane has given a fig about the ECHR for decades, but then Boris faces a leadership crisis and suddenly he and his extrusions are banging on about scrapping it. This scares me. What's behind it? What does Boris have planned in the wake of its scrapping? We have every reason to be fearful.
As someone said on a prior thread, given that you can’t be in the EU without singing up to the ECHR perhaps - before Brexit - submission to this court was a tolerable price to pay for the Single Market etc. I can see that argument
But now we’re out of the EU there is no necessity for us to submit to the ECHR, so we shouldn’t1 -
He may not have anything particular planned, other than offering red meat to his backbenchers and party members.Stark_Dawning said:Hardly anyone sane has given a fig about the ECHR for decades, but then Boris faces a leadership crisis and suddenly he and his extrusions are banging on about scrapping it. This scares me. What's behind it? What does Boris have planned in the wake of its scrapping? We have every reason to be fearful.
So the question is perhaps more what might happen in the wake of its scrapping from someone - Conservative, Labour or whoever - who did have something planned?
That could result in opposition on the same basis as some of the anti-protest measures from the government, as even if you trust X not to abuse an opening, do you trust y?0 -
Autumn boosters currently for over 75, I think. A bit of wait and see now with successive (hopefully smaller) waves over the summer.dixiedean said:Off topic.
Anecdotally know shedloads with Covid right now.
What happened to the booster programme? I thought we were meant to get it after 6 months? Or aren't we?0 -
That’s a fair question, but a different questionkle4 said:
So are you wanting to expand the powers of our Supreme Court? As it cannot be a check on the executive at the moment in the way many might assume it can, given what institutions like the US Supreme Court can do.Leon said:
It’s the PRINCIPLEkle4 said:
People go a bit far with the claims of what would would happen without the ECHR, and I think that does not help the case against the government's intentions (or at least possible intention, which they are floating to see how it goes). Nor does every nominal signatory act well all the time, so it is not as though it ensures it - if we do not trust government x to do y, it is not greatly affected by some procedure or law saying they should do y.Fishing said:
Obviously absurd. The ECHR is the origin of all our human rights. Those other English-speaking Parliamentary democracies Australia, New Zealand and Canada aren't in the ECHR and they are notorious totalitarian tyrannies, as we were before 1950.Andy_JS said:Lord Sumption in today's Sunday Times says we could leave the ECHR without any problems as far as are our commitment to human rights is concerned.
Nevertheless, the benefits of such a move are not particularly apparent, being principally theoretical. Are the problems of the ECHR really so fundamental that it is worth the hassle and aggravations leaving it would cause? Or is it merely that governments do not like court rulings they disagree with sometimes?
The democratic balance between judiciary and executive is a delicate but profound thing. Each should check the other.
A foreign court sitting in a foreign country with foreign judges cannot be democratically checked by the UK executive. It is a constitutional absurdity
We have a Supreme Court in the UK. Let it be Supreme
Are we wanting a court to have the kind of power or not? As I think the anti-ECHR move is divided on that point.
I’m quite happy to see significant judicial oversight of political policy, especially when it comes to human rights. I just feel it should be domestic and democratic, at root
We should, however, avoid the OVERLY politicised American judicial model1 -
‘Priti Patels rating in red wall seats is -25 because what she id doing is populism, not popular.’CorrectHorseBattery said:A new bit of polling to add to the analysis - Rwanda policy low down the list of things that matters to voters. Behind cost of living, NHS backlogs, and climate change.
https://twitter.com/samfr/status/1538528114183127046
https://twitter.com/Samfr/status/1538446790860713984?s=20&t=IgBUmERy8Dk2juyT_WlPIA
This can’t be true according to the PB red wall experts who don’t live in it and have never visited it but know what the red wall thinks and wants. Surely all red wall voters want machine guns on the white cliffs of,Dover.
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Boris is a buffoon and this government is often wretched. I’m not going to argue about thatStark_Dawning said:
I'm all welled up over Boris's appreciation of the delicate but profound balance between the judiciary and executive.Leon said:
It’s the PRINCIPLEkle4 said:
People go a bit far with the claims of what would would happen without the ECHR, and I think that does not help the case against the government's intentions (or at least possible intention, which they are floating to see how it goes). Nor does every nominal signatory act well all the time, so it is not as though it ensures it - if we do not trust government x to do y, it is not greatly affected by some procedure or law saying they should do y.Fishing said:
Obviously absurd. The ECHR is the origin of all our human rights. Those other English-speaking Parliamentary democracies Australia, New Zealand and Canada aren't in the ECHR and they are notorious totalitarian tyrannies, as we were before 1950.Andy_JS said:Lord Sumption in today's Sunday Times says we could leave the ECHR without any problems as far as are our commitment to human rights is concerned.
Nevertheless, the benefits of such a move are not particularly apparent, being principally theoretical. Are the problems of the ECHR really so fundamental that it is worth the hassle and aggravations leaving it would cause? Or is it merely that governments do not like court rulings they disagree with sometimes?
The democratic balance between judiciary and executive is a delicate but profound thing. Each should check the other.
A foreign court sitting in a foreign country with foreign judges cannot be democratically checked by the UK executive. It is a constitutional absurdity
We have a Supreme Court in the UK. Let it be Supreme1 -
Rather telling:CorrectHorseBattery said:A new bit of polling to add to the analysis - Rwanda policy low down the list of things that matters to voters. Behind cost of living, NHS backlogs, and climate change.
https://twitter.com/samfr/status/15385281141831270460 -
At a point all political parties come to believe that anything their party members want must be popular with the public as well.Taz said:
‘Priti Patels rating in red wall seats is -25 because what she id doing is populism, not popular.’CorrectHorseBattery said:A new bit of polling to add to the analysis - Rwanda policy low down the list of things that matters to voters. Behind cost of living, NHS backlogs, and climate change.
https://twitter.com/samfr/status/1538528114183127046
https://twitter.com/Samfr/status/1538446790860713984?s=20&t=IgBUmERy8Dk2juyT_WlPIA
This can’t be true according to the PB red wall experts who don’t live in it and have never visited it but know what the red wall thinks and wants. Surely all red wall voters want machine guns on the white cliffs of,Dover.
(That said IIRC the public as a whole is pretty divided on the Rwanda policy, with a few more in favour than against).0 -
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.Leon said:
Oh god what a load of arse-acheCyclefree said:I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote?
2. If not, why not?
3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok?
4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK?
5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
7 -
I suspect COVID boosters will be offered to and given at the same time for those eligible for flu vaccines, this autumn and indefinitely every autumnturbotubbs said:
Autumn boosters currently for over 75, I think. A bit of wait and see now with successive (hopefully smaller) waves over the summer.dixiedean said:Off topic.
Anecdotally know shedloads with Covid right now.
What happened to the booster programme? I thought we were meant to get it after 6 months? Or aren't we?1 -
To be fair, there is a philosophical and legal difference betweenBenpointer said:
There's no necessity for us to 'submit' to the Geneva Convention. Should we pull out of that too?Leon said:
That really isn’t true. Teresa May (OK not entirely sane but still) was keen to leave the ECHR before Brexit. The issue has been with us for many yearsStark_Dawning said:Hardly anyone sane has given a fig about the ECHR for decades, but then Boris faces a leadership crisis and suddenly he and his extrusions are banging on about scrapping it. This scares me. What's behind it? What does Boris have planned in the wake of its scrapping? We have every reason to be fearful.
As someone said on a prior thread, given that you can’t be in the EU without singing up to the ECHR perhaps - before Brexit - submission to this court was a tolerable price to pay for the Single Market etc. I can see that argument
But now we’re out of the EU there is no necessity for us to submit to the ECHR, so we shouldn’t
- Incorporating, through treaty, laws into domestic law.
- Incorporating, through treaty, laws and their arbitration by a non-domestic court, into domestic law.0 -
NEW: “We seem to think people will go ‘oh, Brexit’ and then vote Tory. It doesn’t work like that. People are really worried about paying the bills. They don’t give a shit about Brexit.”
My report from Wakefield: https://www.politico.eu/article/is-brexit-really-still-boris-johnsons-trump-card/1 -
It was hysterical twaddle. You are better than that boilerplate liberal shriekingCyclefree said:
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.Leon said:
Oh god what a load of arse-acheCyclefree said:I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote?
2. If not, why not?
3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok?
4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK?
5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
The UK government is not considering a Holocaust. And if it was set on that road, we do have a Supreme Court which can and should intervene
Does the Supreme Court strike you as an institutional enabler of Fascism?0 -
That is the precise opposite of what this government is proposing. All its judicial proposals are designed to reduce or eliminate any sort of oversight by domestic courts. You are a credulous fool if you think that the foreignness of the ECHR is the issue.Leon said:
That’s a fair question, but a different questionkle4 said:
So are you wanting to expand the powers of our Supreme Court? As it cannot be a check on the executive at the moment in the way many might assume it can, given what institutions like the US Supreme Court can do.Leon said:
It’s the PRINCIPLEkle4 said:
People go a bit far with the claims of what would would happen without the ECHR, and I think that does not help the case against the government's intentions (or at least possible intention, which they are floating to see how it goes). Nor does every nominal signatory act well all the time, so it is not as though it ensures it - if we do not trust government x to do y, it is not greatly affected by some procedure or law saying they should do y.Fishing said:
Obviously absurd. The ECHR is the origin of all our human rights. Those other English-speaking Parliamentary democracies Australia, New Zealand and Canada aren't in the ECHR and they are notorious totalitarian tyrannies, as we were before 1950.Andy_JS said:Lord Sumption in today's Sunday Times says we could leave the ECHR without any problems as far as are our commitment to human rights is concerned.
Nevertheless, the benefits of such a move are not particularly apparent, being principally theoretical. Are the problems of the ECHR really so fundamental that it is worth the hassle and aggravations leaving it would cause? Or is it merely that governments do not like court rulings they disagree with sometimes?
The democratic balance between judiciary and executive is a delicate but profound thing. Each should check the other.
A foreign court sitting in a foreign country with foreign judges cannot be democratically checked by the UK executive. It is a constitutional absurdity
We have a Supreme Court in the UK. Let it be Supreme
Are we wanting a court to have the kind of power or not? As I think the anti-ECHR move is divided on that point.
I’m quite happy to see significant judicial oversight of political policy, especially when it comes to human rights. I just feel it should be domestic and democratic, at root
5 -
Oh god I’m now in the most depressing town in Armenia0
-
Regarding this ECHR thing. There's a couple of our chaps whom Putin's stooges want to execute. We don't have much hope to save them except to appeal to international law. And by good luck Russia is still subject to the ECHR until September. So it doesn't seem the best time to publicly disrespect their them (even if we think they are wassocks).2
-
But the government want to restrict judicial review as well of course.Leon said:
That’s a fair question, but a different questionkle4 said:
So are you wanting to expand the powers of our Supreme Court? As it cannot be a check on the executive at the moment in the way many might assume it can, given what institutions like the US Supreme Court can do.Leon said:
It’s the PRINCIPLEkle4 said:
People go a bit far with the claims of what would would happen without the ECHR, and I think that does not help the case against the government's intentions (or at least possible intention, which they are floating to see how it goes). Nor does every nominal signatory act well all the time, so it is not as though it ensures it - if we do not trust government x to do y, it is not greatly affected by some procedure or law saying they should do y.Fishing said:
Obviously absurd. The ECHR is the origin of all our human rights. Those other English-speaking Parliamentary democracies Australia, New Zealand and Canada aren't in the ECHR and they are notorious totalitarian tyrannies, as we were before 1950.Andy_JS said:Lord Sumption in today's Sunday Times says we could leave the ECHR without any problems as far as are our commitment to human rights is concerned.
Nevertheless, the benefits of such a move are not particularly apparent, being principally theoretical. Are the problems of the ECHR really so fundamental that it is worth the hassle and aggravations leaving it would cause? Or is it merely that governments do not like court rulings they disagree with sometimes?
The democratic balance between judiciary and executive is a delicate but profound thing. Each should check the other.
A foreign court sitting in a foreign country with foreign judges cannot be democratically checked by the UK executive. It is a constitutional absurdity
We have a Supreme Court in the UK. Let it be Supreme
Are we wanting a court to have the kind of power or not? As I think the anti-ECHR move is divided on that point.
I’m quite happy to see significant judicial oversight of political policy, especially when it comes to human rights. I just feel it should be domestic and democratic, at root
We should, however, avoid the OVERLY politicised American judicial model
Now, some people have been trying to pursue political objectives via the courts and that has wasted some time now and then, but if we are reducing judicial oversight in one area the government should counterbalance that by increasing it elsewhere.
It isn't, so the motivation being floating the ECHR move does not appear to be out of a concern for peoples' rights.0 -
Surely partygate is what matters.Scott_xP said:NEW: “We seem to think people will go ‘oh, Brexit’ and then vote Tory. It doesn’t work like that. People are really worried about paying the bills. They don’t give a shit about Brexit.”
My report from Wakefield: https://www.politico.eu/article/is-brexit-really-still-boris-johnsons-trump-card/0 -
There were a a few Red Wall seats from recollection that were lost because Labour's vote split to the Lib Dems. Not really "hang them all", is it?Taz said:
‘Priti Patels rating in red wall seats is -25 because what she id doing is populism, not popular.’CorrectHorseBattery said:A new bit of polling to add to the analysis - Rwanda policy low down the list of things that matters to voters. Behind cost of living, NHS backlogs, and climate change.
https://twitter.com/samfr/status/1538528114183127046
https://twitter.com/Samfr/status/1538446790860713984?s=20&t=IgBUmERy8Dk2juyT_WlPIA
This can’t be true according to the PB red wall experts who don’t live in it and have never visited it but know what the red wall thinks and wants. Surely all red wall voters want machine guns on the white cliffs of,Dover.0 -
Sure, but the view the red wall will soak it up like a sponge as they are backward luddites is basically wrong.kle4 said:
At a point all political parties come to believe that anything their party members want must be popular with the public as well.Taz said:
‘Priti Patels rating in red wall seats is -25 because what she id doing is populism, not popular.’CorrectHorseBattery said:A new bit of polling to add to the analysis - Rwanda policy low down the list of things that matters to voters. Behind cost of living, NHS backlogs, and climate change.
https://twitter.com/samfr/status/1538528114183127046
https://twitter.com/Samfr/status/1538446790860713984?s=20&t=IgBUmERy8Dk2juyT_WlPIA
This can’t be true according to the PB red wall experts who don’t live in it and have never visited it but know what the red wall thinks and wants. Surely all red wall voters want machine guns on the white cliffs of,Dover.
(That said IIRC the public as a whole is pretty divided on the Rwanda policy, with a few more in favour than against).
Tagging asylum seekers. It’s outrageous.0 -
Government are going big on strikes because they have nothing on CoL.
Although I have to say, them saying it is not for them to get involved has rather shot themselves in the foot and left a wide open goal for Labour if Labour want to take it0 -
Once again you have no answers. Ah well.Leon said:
It was hysterical twaddle. You are better than that boilerplate liberal shriekingCyclefree said:
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.Leon said:
Oh god what a load of arse-acheCyclefree said:I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote?
2. If not, why not?
3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok?
4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK?
5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
The UK government is not considering a Holocaust. And if it was set on that road, we do have a Supreme Court which can and should intervene
Does the Supreme Court strike you as an institutional enabler of Fascism?
Enjoy your travels.
1 -
Strikingly, in Westminster the party has chosen to spend the past week in a very public war of words with Brussels, after unveiling controversial plans to override parts of the Brexit deal Johnson signed in 2019.
“I certainly think we may be fighting the last war,” says one despairing local Conservative Party member. “We’re obsessed with Brexit — we just keep going on about it.”3 -
Perhapskle4 said:
But the government want to restrict judicial review as well of course.Leon said:
That’s a fair question, but a different questionkle4 said:
So are you wanting to expand the powers of our Supreme Court? As it cannot be a check on the executive at the moment in the way many might assume it can, given what institutions like the US Supreme Court can do.Leon said:
It’s the PRINCIPLEkle4 said:
People go a bit far with the claims of what would would happen without the ECHR, and I think that does not help the case against the government's intentions (or at least possible intention, which they are floating to see how it goes). Nor does every nominal signatory act well all the time, so it is not as though it ensures it - if we do not trust government x to do y, it is not greatly affected by some procedure or law saying they should do y.Fishing said:
Obviously absurd. The ECHR is the origin of all our human rights. Those other English-speaking Parliamentary democracies Australia, New Zealand and Canada aren't in the ECHR and they are notorious totalitarian tyrannies, as we were before 1950.Andy_JS said:Lord Sumption in today's Sunday Times says we could leave the ECHR without any problems as far as are our commitment to human rights is concerned.
Nevertheless, the benefits of such a move are not particularly apparent, being principally theoretical. Are the problems of the ECHR really so fundamental that it is worth the hassle and aggravations leaving it would cause? Or is it merely that governments do not like court rulings they disagree with sometimes?
The democratic balance between judiciary and executive is a delicate but profound thing. Each should check the other.
A foreign court sitting in a foreign country with foreign judges cannot be democratically checked by the UK executive. It is a constitutional absurdity
We have a Supreme Court in the UK. Let it be Supreme
Are we wanting a court to have the kind of power or not? As I think the anti-ECHR move is divided on that point.
I’m quite happy to see significant judicial oversight of political policy, especially when it comes to human rights. I just feel it should be domestic and democratic, at root
We should, however, avoid the OVERLY politicised American judicial model
Now, some people have been trying to pursue political objectives via the courts and that has wasted some time now and then, but if we are reducing judicial oversight in one area the government should counterbalance that by increasing it elsewhere.
It isn't, so the motivation being floating the ECHR move does not appear to be out of a concern for peoples' rights.
I should add I also do not think this is a pressing concern. Not a first order issue. We have plenty of other stuff that’s way more important than membership or otherwise of the ECHR
But it is the subject of the threader so 🤷♂️1 -
Russia have already been expelled from the Council, are they still part of the ECHR?gettingbetter said:Regarding this ECHR thing. There's a couple of our chaps whom Putin's stooges want to execute. We don't have much hope to save them except to appeal to international law. And by good luck Russia is still subject to the ECHR until September. So it doesn't seem the best time to publicly disrespect their them (even if we think they are wassocks).
0 -
The local Tory activist quoted above is emphatic on the same point. “We seem to think if we bring (prominent Brexiteer) Jacob Rees-Mogg up for half an hour, people will go ‘oh, Brexit’ and then vote Tory. It doesn't work like that. People are really worried about paying the bills. They don’t give a shit about Brexit.”1
-
Have to admit I kind of agreed with Shapps. Announcing your plan to do something, then asking for talks, then suggesting not holding the talks is 'failing to prevent' something is a bit of stunt. I'm inclined to be supportive of anyone against the government thesedays but on that particular point it didn't strike me as particularly unreasonable.CorrectHorseBattery said:Government are going big on strikes because they have nothing on CoL.
Although I have to say, them saying it is not for them to get involved has rather shot themselves in the foot and left a wide open goal for Labour if Labour want to take it
It is not for the government to intervene to stop rail strikes, the transport secretary has said - despite unions calling for talks.
Grant Shapps said the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) request for a meeting was a "stunt" and claimed it had been "determined to go on strike".
The union said politicians were failing to prevent three days of industrial action.
Labour claimed ministers wanted the strikes to go ahead to "sow division".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-618545671 -
I’m not going to address your A Level Politics Essay by writing another of my ownCyclefree said:
Once again you have no answers. Ah well.Leon said:
It was hysterical twaddle. You are better than that boilerplate liberal shriekingCyclefree said:
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.Leon said:
Oh god what a load of arse-acheCyclefree said:I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote?
2. If not, why not?
3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok?
4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK?
5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
The UK government is not considering a Holocaust. And if it was set on that road, we do have a Supreme Court which can and should intervene
Does the Supreme Court strike you as an institutional enabler of Fascism?
Enjoy your travels.0 -
But what plan? I'm not aware.kle4 said:
Have to admit I kind of agreed with Shapps. Announcing your plan to do something, then asking for talks, then suggesting not holding the talks is 'failing to prevent' something is a bit of stunt. I'm inclined to be supportive of anyone against the government thesedays but on that particular point it didn't strike me as particularly unreasonable.CorrectHorseBattery said:Government are going big on strikes because they have nothing on CoL.
Although I have to say, them saying it is not for them to get involved has rather shot themselves in the foot and left a wide open goal for Labour if Labour want to take it
It is not for the government to intervene to stop rail strikes, the transport secretary has said - despite unions calling for talks.
Grant Shapps said the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) request for a meeting was a "stunt" and claimed it had been "determined to go on strike".
The union said politicians were failing to prevent three days of industrial action.
Labour claimed ministers wanted the strikes to go ahead to "sow division".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61854567
All Gov has gone for the last three months is put up headlines saying how bad the strikes will be. That's not going to stop them unless they get round the table and negotiate.
If it's a stunt then I and many others will be with Gov but the Gov didn't even try from what I can see.0 -
I do think that the type of government that would pass a law expelling Jews from the country would not really be concerned what either the ECHR, or any domestic court thought about it. In fact, I suspect that this country would have become a dystopia, if such a government took power.Cyclefree said:
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.Leon said:
Oh god what a load of arse-acheCyclefree said:I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote?
2. If not, why not?
3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok?
4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK?
5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
Russia is nominally still subject to the ECHR but its rulers have been carrying out extra-judicial killings of political opponents and (in some parts) homosexuals for years. To take another example, the Nazis never formally repealed the rights granted in the Weimar constitution. They either ignored or subverted them as required.4 -
You are mistaking the Russians for people who care.gettingbetter said:Regarding this ECHR thing. There's a couple of our chaps whom Putin's stooges want to execute. We don't have much hope to save them except to appeal to international law. And by good luck Russia is still subject to the ECHR until September. So it doesn't seem the best time to publicly disrespect their them (even if we think they are wassocks).
0 -
"travel raises the IQ" - lolLeon said:
Oh god what a load of arse-acheCyclefree said:I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote?
2. If not, why not?
3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok?
4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK?
5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.1 -
BTW not seen you around for a while. I hope you are well and life is good for you.CorrectHorseBattery said:
There were a a few Red Wall seats from recollection that were lost because Labour's vote split to the Lib Dems. Not really "hang them all", is it?Taz said:
‘Priti Patels rating in red wall seats is -25 because what she id doing is populism, not popular.’CorrectHorseBattery said:A new bit of polling to add to the analysis - Rwanda policy low down the list of things that matters to voters. Behind cost of living, NHS backlogs, and climate change.
https://twitter.com/samfr/status/1538528114183127046
https://twitter.com/Samfr/status/1538446790860713984?s=20&t=IgBUmERy8Dk2juyT_WlPIA
This can’t be true according to the PB red wall experts who don’t live in it and have never visited it but know what the red wall thinks and wants. Surely all red wall voters want machine guns on the white cliffs of,Dover.1 -
Strikes are inevitable. The government doesn't have to do anything except state they do not have blank cheques. The politics of it are, I think, more problematic than those around Boris seem to think. A lot of these strikers will have considerable public sympathy, especially if they are offering to settle for less than inflation.CorrectHorseBattery said:Government are going big on strikes because they have nothing on CoL.
Although I have to say, them saying it is not for them to get involved has rather shot themselves in the foot and left a wide open goal for Labour if Labour want to take it1 -
Johnson thinks releasing his previous Brexit hits will see voters flocking back but given we were told relentlessly Brexit was done these re-releases look a bit stale .
The Tories need to stop flogging a dead horse !1 -
Harsh and unnecessary. Thought you better than that.Leon said:
I’m not going to address your A Level Politics Essay by writing another of my ownCyclefree said:
Once again you have no answers. Ah well.Leon said:
It was hysterical twaddle. You are better than that boilerplate liberal shriekingCyclefree said:
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.Leon said:
Oh god what a load of arse-acheCyclefree said:I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote?
2. If not, why not?
3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok?
4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK?
5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
The UK government is not considering a Holocaust. And if it was set on that road, we do have a Supreme Court which can and should intervene
Does the Supreme Court strike you as an institutional enabler of Fascism?
Enjoy your travels.0 -
If the Tories revert back to Brexit, really not sure from a political sense this is clever when people want to hear about CoL???0
-
Really? He's a nasty piece of workTaz said:
Harsh and unnecessary. Thought you better than that.Leon said:
I’m not going to address your A Level Politics Essay by writing another of my ownCyclefree said:
Once again you have no answers. Ah well.Leon said:
It was hysterical twaddle. You are better than that boilerplate liberal shriekingCyclefree said:
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.Leon said:
Oh god what a load of arse-acheCyclefree said:I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote?
2. If not, why not?
3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok?
4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK?
5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
The UK government is not considering a Holocaust. And if it was set on that road, we do have a Supreme Court which can and should intervene
Does the Supreme Court strike you as an institutional enabler of Fascism?
Enjoy your travels.0 -
Very few people care about brexit now. It’s history. A few barking mad FBPE types still drag it up and some diehard leavers but for most people it’s get on with life.CorrectHorseBattery said:The local Tory activist quoted above is emphatic on the same point. “We seem to think if we bring (prominent Brexiteer) Jacob Rees-Mogg up for half an hour, people will go ‘oh, Brexit’ and then vote Tory. It doesn't work like that. People are really worried about paying the bills. They don’t give a shit about Brexit.”
1 -
He’s never been to me and I have never seen him be unpleasant to people before that jibe at cyclefree, who I think is an excellent thought provoking poster and even if I don’t agree with her I enjoy reading her comments.CorrectHorseBattery said:
Really? He's a nasty piece of workTaz said:
Harsh and unnecessary. Thought you better than that.Leon said:
I’m not going to address your A Level Politics Essay by writing another of my ownCyclefree said:
Once again you have no answers. Ah well.Leon said:
It was hysterical twaddle. You are better than that boilerplate liberal shriekingCyclefree said:
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.Leon said:
Oh god what a load of arse-acheCyclefree said:I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote?
2. If not, why not?
3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok?
4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK?
5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
The UK government is not considering a Holocaust. And if it was set on that road, we do have a Supreme Court which can and should intervene
Does the Supreme Court strike you as an institutional enabler of Fascism?
Enjoy your travels.0 -
With respect, you are missing the point. We have had British governments which have on various occasions breached the human rights of groups in this country and been taken to task for this. So it is possible to have democratically elected governments which are a long way short of the full totalitarian horror story but which still breach human rights.Sean_F said:
I do think that the type of government that would pass a law expelling Jews from the country would not really be concerned what either the ECHR, or any domestic court thought about it. In fact, I suspect that this country would have become a dystopia, if such a government took power.Cyclefree said:
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.Leon said:
Oh god what a load of arse-acheCyclefree said:I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote?
2. If not, why not?
3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok?
4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK?
5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
Russia is nominally still subject to the ECHR but its rulers have been carrying out extra-judicial killings of political opponents and (in some parts) homosexuals for years. To take another example, the Nazis never formally repealed the rights granted in the Weimar constitution. They either ignored or subverted them as required.
The difference is that they did take account of the courts and understood the need for a check by an external body.
What we appear to have now is a government (and its credulous little helpers) which does not want to take account of the courts, is busy planning to reduce their power and sees no need for any sort of external check.
That is worse than what we had in the past. Things do not get worse in one great leap. They do so by small incremental steps - as I pointed out here: https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/12/09/where-the-slippery-slope-leads/
"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.”6 -
There was a UK judge sitting on the panel whose decision has you so riled up.Leon said:
It’s the PRINCIPLEkle4 said:
People go a bit far with the claims of what would would happen without the ECHR, and I think that does not help the case against the government's intentions (or at least possible intention, which they are floating to see how it goes). Nor does every nominal signatory act well all the time, so it is not as though it ensures it - if we do not trust government x to do y, it is not greatly affected by some procedure or law saying they should do y.Fishing said:
Obviously absurd. The ECHR is the origin of all our human rights. Those other English-speaking Parliamentary democracies Australia, New Zealand and Canada aren't in the ECHR and they are notorious totalitarian tyrannies, as we were before 1950.Andy_JS said:Lord Sumption in today's Sunday Times says we could leave the ECHR without any problems as far as are our commitment to human rights is concerned.
Nevertheless, the benefits of such a move are not particularly apparent, being principally theoretical. Are the problems of the ECHR really so fundamental that it is worth the hassle and aggravations leaving it would cause? Or is it merely that governments do not like court rulings they disagree with sometimes?
The democratic balance between judiciary and executive is a delicate but profound thing. Each should check the other.
A foreign court sitting in a foreign country with foreign judges cannot be democratically checked by the UK executive. It is a constitutional absurdity
We have a Supreme Court in the UK. Let it be Supreme
Your principle seems to be that we should trust the current lot in power - Johnson; Raab; Braverman - to rewrite our constitution as they see fit.
That is the absurdity.2 -
It’s not just the Tories getting it wrong. Labour and the media obsess about partygate.CorrectHorseBattery said:If the Tories revert back to Brexit, really not sure from a political sense this is clever when people want to hear about CoL???
What matters is the cost of living crisis. It’s impacting us. It’s impacting everyone. I voted remain, we lost, I’m over it. Inflation is going to be awful for people.0 -
To be fair, I am capable of being “quite unpleasant to people” - but I generally only do it if provoked..Taz said:
He’s never been to me and I have never seen him be unpleasant to people before that jibe at cyclefree, who I think is an excellent thought provoking poster and even if I don’t agree with her I enjoy reading her comments.CorrectHorseBattery said:
Really? He's a nasty piece of workTaz said:
Harsh and unnecessary. Thought you better than that.Leon said:
I’m not going to address your A Level Politics Essay by writing another of my ownCyclefree said:
Once again you have no answers. Ah well.Leon said:
It was hysterical twaddle. You are better than that boilerplate liberal shriekingCyclefree said:
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.Leon said:
Oh god what a load of arse-acheCyclefree said:I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote?
2. If not, why not?
3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok?
4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK?
5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
The UK government is not considering a Holocaust. And if it was set on that road, we do have a Supreme Court which can and should intervene
Does the Supreme Court strike you as an institutional enabler of Fascism?
Enjoy your travels.
However, that wasn’t particularly nasty to @cyclefree
She is articulate and thoughtful, but that series of questions struck me as sophomoric. Which is unusual for her
In any event @Sean_F has now answered her, quite comprehensively0 -
The difficulty is that very few people are that interested in the fact of Brexit either way, but a lot of people are interested in the consequences, which are turning out pretty negative overall.Taz said:
Very few people care about brexit now. It’s history. A few barking mad FBPE types still drag it up and some diehard leavers but for most people it’s get on with life.CorrectHorseBattery said:The local Tory activist quoted above is emphatic on the same point. “We seem to think if we bring (prominent Brexiteer) Jacob Rees-Mogg up for half an hour, people will go ‘oh, Brexit’ and then vote Tory. It doesn't work like that. People are really worried about paying the bills. They don’t give a shit about Brexit.”
If the debate for 2024 becomes "make Brexit work (by diluting it)" vs. "defend Brexit with all your might", then the first option looks pretty attractive.2 -
But you said prisoners voting was outside the "domain" of human rights. Not that you disagreed with the ruling but that it was outside the whole domain.Endillion said:
It's the "rights" bit that's poorly defined.kinabalu said:
Prisoners cease to be human then?Endillion said:If we leave the ECHR, it won't be just because of their latest ruling - there is a long history of interference in matters which aren't obviously in the domain of "human rights". Banning whole life tariffs for prisoners and trying to enforce voting rights for prisoners are the two that spring to mind, but I'm sure there are others.
Membership of the ECHR offers no guarantee against a future tyrannical UK government whatsoever, for the simple reason that it would be very easy for said government to just take us out the ECHR if they wanted.
So if it's not that iyo prisoners aren't human it must be that voting iyo isn't a right. Which seems an odd view to me.0 -
I don't mean to be all pedantic, but technically that flag is that of The Council of Europe dating back to 1949, of which we are a member.Leon said:
The Rwanda judgement was outrageous interference. For that alone, we must leaveDavidL said:On topic, it is increasingly difficult to say what this chaotic government will do while they flail about seeking to divert attention from the overflowing too hard tray but this would be particularly stupid.
Yes, the ECtHR can be annoying at times, yes there is an argument that they have extended HR law far beyond what the Convention originally intended, yes the decision on the Rwanda flight was, well, a bit weird, but jeez. If we replace it with a new Convention with different wording we will then spend another decade trying to work out the finer details that has been largely ironed out on the current Convention.
This is why Brexit
Also, for those low-watt slow learners who think the European Court of Human Rights has “nothing to do with the EU” here’s the courtroom:
The EU stole it.6 -
Ideally I'd like them to try to do both of those. As it is they are only even trying one. Possibly.Cyclefree said:
"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.”Sean_F said:
I do think that the type of government that would pass a law expelling Jews from the country would not really be concerned what either the ECHR, or any domestic court thought about it. In fact, I suspect that this country would have become a dystopia, if such a government took power.Cyclefree said:
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.Leon said:
Oh god what a load of arse-acheCyclefree said:I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote?
2. If not, why not?
3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok?
4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK?
5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
Russia is nominally still subject to the ECHR but its rulers have been carrying out extra-judicial killings of political opponents and (in some parts) homosexuals for years. To take another example, the Nazis never formally repealed the rights granted in the Weimar constitution. They either ignored or subverted them as required.0 -
Yeah but you sort of see how, in political terms, rejecting this institution might not be such a bright idea.DavidL said:
You are mistaking the Russians for people who care.gettingbetter said:Regarding this ECHR thing. There's a couple of our chaps whom Putin's stooges want to execute. We don't have much hope to save them except to appeal to international law. And by good luck Russia is still subject to the ECHR until September. So it doesn't seem the best time to publicly disrespect their them (even if we think they are wassocks).
0 -
Other than those of the PM.kle4 said:
But the government want to restrict judicial review as well of course.Leon said:
That’s a fair question, but a different questionkle4 said:
So are you wanting to expand the powers of our Supreme Court? As it cannot be a check on the executive at the moment in the way many might assume it can, given what institutions like the US Supreme Court can do.Leon said:
It’s the PRINCIPLEkle4 said:
People go a bit far with the claims of what would would happen without the ECHR, and I think that does not help the case against the government's intentions (or at least possible intention, which they are floating to see how it goes). Nor does every nominal signatory act well all the time, so it is not as though it ensures it - if we do not trust government x to do y, it is not greatly affected by some procedure or law saying they should do y.Fishing said:
Obviously absurd. The ECHR is the origin of all our human rights. Those other English-speaking Parliamentary democracies Australia, New Zealand and Canada aren't in the ECHR and they are notorious totalitarian tyrannies, as we were before 1950.Andy_JS said:Lord Sumption in today's Sunday Times says we could leave the ECHR without any problems as far as are our commitment to human rights is concerned.
Nevertheless, the benefits of such a move are not particularly apparent, being principally theoretical. Are the problems of the ECHR really so fundamental that it is worth the hassle and aggravations leaving it would cause? Or is it merely that governments do not like court rulings they disagree with sometimes?
The democratic balance between judiciary and executive is a delicate but profound thing. Each should check the other.
A foreign court sitting in a foreign country with foreign judges cannot be democratically checked by the UK executive. It is a constitutional absurdity
We have a Supreme Court in the UK. Let it be Supreme
Are we wanting a court to have the kind of power or not? As I think the anti-ECHR move is divided on that point.
I’m quite happy to see significant judicial oversight of political policy, especially when it comes to human rights. I just feel it should be domestic and democratic, at root
We should, however, avoid the OVERLY politicised American judicial model
Now, some people have been trying to pursue political objectives via the courts and that has wasted some time now and then, but if we are reducing judicial oversight in one area the government should counterbalance that by increasing it elsewhere.
It isn't, so the motivation being floating the ECHR move does not appear to be out of a concern for peoples' rights.2 -
The ECHR is going to help with CoL how...0
-
The Council of Europe should take the European Council to the European General Court for violation of its intellectual property.rcs1000 said:
I don't mean to be all pedantic, but technically that flag is that of The Council of Europe dating back to 1949, of which we are a member.Leon said:
The Rwanda judgement was outrageous interference. For that alone, we must leaveDavidL said:On topic, it is increasingly difficult to say what this chaotic government will do while they flail about seeking to divert attention from the overflowing too hard tray but this would be particularly stupid.
Yes, the ECtHR can be annoying at times, yes there is an argument that they have extended HR law far beyond what the Convention originally intended, yes the decision on the Rwanda flight was, well, a bit weird, but jeez. If we replace it with a new Convention with different wording we will then spend another decade trying to work out the finer details that has been largely ironed out on the current Convention.
This is why Brexit
Also, for those low-watt slow learners who think the European Court of Human Rights has “nothing to do with the EU” here’s the courtroom:
The EU stole it.1 -
It’s not, but you tend to hope that governments can deal with two (or, ideally, more) things are once.CorrectHorseBattery said:The ECHR is going to help with CoL how...
0 -
With respect I think you are missing @Sean_F's point. We don't have and never have had a government who wanted to behave like that. If we did the ECHR would not be an impediment to them. It is a pretence that this is a slope. It is a series of cliffs. We either jump off or we don't. The Convention is an illusion at worst or an alarm bell at best, no more.Cyclefree said:
With respect, you are missing the point. We have had British governments which have on various occasions breached the human rights of groups in this country and been taken to task for this. So it is possible to have democratically elected governments which are a long way short of the full totalitarian horror story but which still breach human rights.Sean_F said:
I do think that the type of government that would pass a law expelling Jews from the country would not really be concerned what either the ECHR, or any domestic court thought about it. In fact, I suspect that this country would have become a dystopia, if such a government took power.Cyclefree said:
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.Leon said:
Oh god what a load of arse-acheCyclefree said:I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote?
2. If not, why not?
3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok?
4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK?
5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
Russia is nominally still subject to the ECHR but its rulers have been carrying out extra-judicial killings of political opponents and (in some parts) homosexuals for years. To take another example, the Nazis never formally repealed the rights granted in the Weimar constitution. They either ignored or subverted them as required.
The difference is that they did take account of the courts and understood the need for a check by an external body.
What we appear to have now is a government (and its credulous little helpers) which does not want to take account of the courts, is busy planning to reduce their power and sees no need for any sort of external check.
That is worse than what we had in the past. Things do not get worse in one great leap. They do so by small incremental steps - as I pointed out here: https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/12/09/where-the-slippery-slope-leads/
"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.”3 -
There is not, and never has been, any point to Grant Shapps. He is the ultimate pitiful waste of blood, organs and oxygen.CorrectHorseBattery said:Rail strikes: Not for government to intervene - Shapps
So what is the point in you then?3 -
Really interesting and depressing article though. I just don't get the political appeal of these rancid old geezers like Trump and Bolso and now this new one.IanB2 said:
The fact that so many of us are glued to following every twist and turn of the Colombian presidential election is surely why the rate of posts today in PB is more sluggish than is usual for a sunny Sunday?gettingbetter said:Is anyone else on here following the Colombian presidential election?
The second round is today. The broad left candidate, Gustavo Petro, got 40% in the first round , with the second placed pseudo independent, Rodolfo Hernández, standing as an anti-corruption candidate, 12 points behind at 28%. The dismal candidate of the governing right wing kleptocratic party scored just 24%.
The 77 year old misogynist businessman made his fortune constructing unsafe houses sold on usurious finance terms to poor people. He is astonishingly ignorant, and although he has been compared to Donald Trump, though he makes the latter look like a genius. Hernandez famously claimed to be a follower of Adolf Hitler, apparently confusing him with the similarly named Albert Einstein, and had never heard of Vichada, one of the 32 Colombian departments (like US states). And you could not make this up: this saintly anti-corruption candidate has dozens of legal cases running against him for embezzlement and breaches of employment laws, involving his construction business and family members whilst he was mayor of Bucaramanga, and the one of them is due to be heard on 21st July.
Anyway despite all this the governing party has thrown all its efforts to switch its support to Hernandez to prevent Colombia’s first left-wing president. So much so that the national registrar (i.e. electoral commission), in a superb display of impartisanship, has publicly told Petro that he has to respect the result of the election.
SMarkets has Hernández around 65% chance to win, to Petro’s 35%. Which is unfortunate, because if ever a country is crying out for a dose of socialism and decent government, it is Colombia.
I very much hope the market is wrong and have bet accordingly.0 -
I fear one thing is proving a bit of an ask in the last few weeks.RobD said:
It’s not, but you tend to hope that governments can deal with two (or, ideally, more) things are once.CorrectHorseBattery said:The ECHR is going to help with CoL how...
3 -
Are you an asylum seeker?Leon said:I am approaching an Armenian BEACH
3 -
I think it would be unfair to call it a mere illusion or alarm bell. I agree that a government that wanted to do such things would not be prevented by the ECHR, but as part of a general erosion of expectations removing steps that currently are complied with could form part of a pattern wherein standards slip further and further.DavidL said:
With respect I think you are missing @Sean_F's point. We don't have and never have had a government who wanted to behave like that. If we did the ECHR would not be an impediment to them. It is a pretence that this is a slope. It is a series of cliffs. We either jump off or we don't. The Convention is an illusion at worst or an alarm bell at best, no more.Cyclefree said:
With respect, you are missing the point. We have had British governments which have on various occasions breached the human rights of groups in this country and been taken to task for this. So it is possible to have democratically elected governments which are a long way short of the full totalitarian horror story but which still breach human rights.Sean_F said:
I do think that the type of government that would pass a law expelling Jews from the country would not really be concerned what either the ECHR, or any domestic court thought about it. In fact, I suspect that this country would have become a dystopia, if such a government took power.Cyclefree said:
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.Leon said:
Oh god what a load of arse-acheCyclefree said:I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote?
2. If not, why not?
3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok?
4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK?
5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
Russia is nominally still subject to the ECHR but its rulers have been carrying out extra-judicial killings of political opponents and (in some parts) homosexuals for years. To take another example, the Nazis never formally repealed the rights granted in the Weimar constitution. They either ignored or subverted them as required.
The difference is that they did take account of the courts and understood the need for a check by an external body.
What we appear to have now is a government (and its credulous little helpers) which does not want to take account of the courts, is busy planning to reduce their power and sees no need for any sort of external check.
That is worse than what we had in the past. Things do not get worse in one great leap. They do so by small incremental steps - as I pointed out here: https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/12/09/where-the-slippery-slope-leads/
"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.”2 -
It doesn't bother me. I could jibe back much harder if I wanted to. I've dealt with much tougher people than dear old Leon wandering round Armenia taking photos of meadows and old trucks.Taz said:
He’s never been to me and I have never seen him be unpleasant to people before that jibe at cyclefree, who I think is an excellent thought provoking poster and even if I don’t agree with her I enjoy reading her comments.CorrectHorseBattery said:
Really? He's a nasty piece of workTaz said:
Harsh and unnecessary. Thought you better than that.Leon said:
I’m not going to address your A Level Politics Essay by writing another of my ownCyclefree said:
Once again you have no answers. Ah well.Leon said:
It was hysterical twaddle. You are better than that boilerplate liberal shriekingCyclefree said:
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.Leon said:
Oh god what a load of arse-acheCyclefree said:I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote?
2. If not, why not?
3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok?
4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK?
5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
The UK government is not considering a Holocaust. And if it was set on that road, we do have a Supreme Court which can and should intervene
Does the Supreme Court strike you as an institutional enabler of Fascism?
Enjoy your travels.
And thank you for your comment.
Here is a photo of one of my neighbours.
1 -
Looks like you have nicer weather on the west coast than the east coast.Cyclefree said:
It doesn't bother me. I could jibe back much harder if I wanted to. I've dealt with much tougher people than dear old Leon wandering round Armenia taking photos of meadows and old trucks.Taz said:
He’s never been to me and I have never seen him be unpleasant to people before that jibe at cyclefree, who I think is an excellent thought provoking poster and even if I don’t agree with her I enjoy reading her comments.CorrectHorseBattery said:
Really? He's a nasty piece of workTaz said:
Harsh and unnecessary. Thought you better than that.Leon said:
I’m not going to address your A Level Politics Essay by writing another of my ownCyclefree said:
Once again you have no answers. Ah well.Leon said:
It was hysterical twaddle. You are better than that boilerplate liberal shriekingCyclefree said:
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.Leon said:
Oh god what a load of arse-acheCyclefree said:I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote?
2. If not, why not?
3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok?
4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK?
5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
The UK government is not considering a Holocaust. And if it was set on that road, we do have a Supreme Court which can and should intervene
Does the Supreme Court strike you as an institutional enabler of Fascism?
Enjoy your travels.
And thank you for your comment.
Here is a photo of one of my neighbours.0 -
Sounds like an alarm bell to me. And they can be quite useful at times. I am not suggesting otherwise.kle4 said:
I think it would be unfair to call it a mere illusion or alarm bell. I agree that a government that wanted to do such things would not be prevented by the ECHR, but as part of a general erosion of expectations removing steps that currently are complied with could form part of a pattern wherein standards slip further and further.DavidL said:
With respect I think you are missing @Sean_F's point. We don't have and never have had a government who wanted to behave like that. If we did the ECHR would not be an impediment to them. It is a pretence that this is a slope. It is a series of cliffs. We either jump off or we don't. The Convention is an illusion at worst or an alarm bell at best, no more.Cyclefree said:
With respect, you are missing the point. We have had British governments which have on various occasions breached the human rights of groups in this country and been taken to task for this. So it is possible to have democratically elected governments which are a long way short of the full totalitarian horror story but which still breach human rights.Sean_F said:
I do think that the type of government that would pass a law expelling Jews from the country would not really be concerned what either the ECHR, or any domestic court thought about it. In fact, I suspect that this country would have become a dystopia, if such a government took power.Cyclefree said:
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.Leon said:
Oh god what a load of arse-acheCyclefree said:I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote?
2. If not, why not?
3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok?
4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK?
5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
Russia is nominally still subject to the ECHR but its rulers have been carrying out extra-judicial killings of political opponents and (in some parts) homosexuals for years. To take another example, the Nazis never formally repealed the rights granted in the Weimar constitution. They either ignored or subverted them as required.
The difference is that they did take account of the courts and understood the need for a check by an external body.
What we appear to have now is a government (and its credulous little helpers) which does not want to take account of the courts, is busy planning to reduce their power and sees no need for any sort of external check.
That is worse than what we had in the past. Things do not get worse in one great leap. They do so by small incremental steps - as I pointed out here: https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/12/09/where-the-slippery-slope-leads/
"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.”0 -
Without in any way withdrawing my previous comment, it is ludicrous for the RMT to blame the government for their decision to go on strike and then not call it off though. The reason they are striking is the Union not the government.kle4 said:
Have to admit I kind of agreed with Shapps. Announcing your plan to do something, then asking for talks, then suggesting not holding the talks is 'failing to prevent' something is a bit of stunt. I'm inclined to be supportive of anyone against the government thesedays but on that particular point it didn't strike me as particularly unreasonable.CorrectHorseBattery said:Government are going big on strikes because they have nothing on CoL.
Although I have to say, them saying it is not for them to get involved has rather shot themselves in the foot and left a wide open goal for Labour if Labour want to take it
It is not for the government to intervene to stop rail strikes, the transport secretary has said - despite unions calling for talks.
Grant Shapps said the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) request for a meeting was a "stunt" and claimed it had been "determined to go on strike".
The union said politicians were failing to prevent three days of industrial action.
Labour claimed ministers wanted the strikes to go ahead to "sow division".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61854567
Don't have much sympathy with them either. Too many people in the rail sector are already paid more than they're worth and don't seem to realise some fairly significant changes are coming due to new working from home options. Not necessarily for the worse, but things will definitely be different.
For one thing, a rail strike will have much less impact than it did five years ago, so they have less leverage.0 -
If we're going with analogies I might describe it more as a fence. You can bypass or hurdle it, but not without hassle and potential risks to yourself, but remove it and it's that much easier to just charge on through.DavidL said:
Sounds like an alarm bell to me. And they can be quite useful at times. I am not suggesting otherwise.kle4 said:
I think it would be unfair to call it a mere illusion or alarm bell. I agree that a government that wanted to do such things would not be prevented by the ECHR, but as part of a general erosion of expectations removing steps that currently are complied with could form part of a pattern wherein standards slip further and further.DavidL said:
With respect I think you are missing @Sean_F's point. We don't have and never have had a government who wanted to behave like that. If we did the ECHR would not be an impediment to them. It is a pretence that this is a slope. It is a series of cliffs. We either jump off or we don't. The Convention is an illusion at worst or an alarm bell at best, no more.Cyclefree said:
With respect, you are missing the point. We have had British governments which have on various occasions breached the human rights of groups in this country and been taken to task for this. So it is possible to have democratically elected governments which are a long way short of the full totalitarian horror story but which still breach human rights.Sean_F said:
I do think that the type of government that would pass a law expelling Jews from the country would not really be concerned what either the ECHR, or any domestic court thought about it. In fact, I suspect that this country would have become a dystopia, if such a government took power.Cyclefree said:
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.Leon said:
Oh god what a load of arse-acheCyclefree said:I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote?
2. If not, why not?
3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok?
4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK?
5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
Russia is nominally still subject to the ECHR but its rulers have been carrying out extra-judicial killings of political opponents and (in some parts) homosexuals for years. To take another example, the Nazis never formally repealed the rights granted in the Weimar constitution. They either ignored or subverted them as required.
The difference is that they did take account of the courts and understood the need for a check by an external body.
What we appear to have now is a government (and its credulous little helpers) which does not want to take account of the courts, is busy planning to reduce their power and sees no need for any sort of external check.
That is worse than what we had in the past. Things do not get worse in one great leap. They do so by small incremental steps - as I pointed out here: https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/12/09/where-the-slippery-slope-leads/
"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.”0 -
Judicial oversight of the actions of elected politicians is always going to be a nuanced and contentious area. There are grey areas where an activist judiciary can subvert democracy irrespective of the merits of their decisions. Who will guard the guardians? That is a question that can never be satisfactorily answered.
The shenanigans of Johnson and the poor standard of contemporary politicians (including Labour) are not good for democracy but relying on the judiciary to rescue it is not a viable answer. As others have pointed out most dictatorships have excellent formal constitutions and rights for citizens.
In my opinion there is too much battling against administrative and political decisions via the courts. No big planning decision, policy change or deportation takes place without a lengthy set of legal challenges. How can the elected politicians be held accountable by the voters if their policies are never implemented in a timely manner? I'm not arguing for the opposite situation - legal challenges and judicial oversight are valuable safeguards in moderation.
I think all this is linked to the grotesque increase in the number of laws and regulations over recent decades. Our useless politicians when impotent in the face of a problem or public discontent legislate as a sort of displacement activity.
3 -
They stole it very consciously - as a way of blurring the boundaries between the ECHR and the EU, thereby giving the EU a foundational constitutional document without ever asking the European people if they wanted thisrcs1000 said:
I don't mean to be all pedantic, but technically that flag is that of The Council of Europe dating back to 1949, of which we are a member.Leon said:
The Rwanda judgement was outrageous interference. For that alone, we must leaveDavidL said:On topic, it is increasingly difficult to say what this chaotic government will do while they flail about seeking to divert attention from the overflowing too hard tray but this would be particularly stupid.
Yes, the ECtHR can be annoying at times, yes there is an argument that they have extended HR law far beyond what the Convention originally intended, yes the decision on the Rwanda flight was, well, a bit weird, but jeez. If we replace it with a new Convention with different wording we will then spend another decade trying to work out the finer details that has been largely ironed out on the current Convention.
This is why Brexit
Also, for those low-watt slow learners who think the European Court of Human Rights has “nothing to do with the EU” here’s the courtroom:
The EU stole it.
That’s how the EU has nearly always accrued power and personality (so much so it is now close to nationhood) by stealth, and on the quiet.
The few times it has gone to various peoples and asked for permission, in referendums, it has often been knocked back. Hence the need for subterfuge. Cf the Lisbon Treaty0 -
But my point is that we have had democratically elected governments which wanted to do things which were in breach of human rights. They were stopped because they respected the idea of human rights and the need for a check.DavidL said:
With respect I think you are missing @Sean_F's point. We don't have and never have had a government who wanted to behave like that. If we did the ECHR would not be an impediment to them. It is a pretence that this is a slope. It is a series of cliffs. We either jump off or we don't. The Convention is an illusion at worst or an alarm bell at best, no more.Cyclefree said:
With respect, you are missing the point. We have had British governments which have on various occasions breached the human rights of groups in this country and been taken to task for this. So it is possible to have democratically elected governments which are a long way short of the full totalitarian horror story but which still breach human rights.Sean_F said:
I do think that the type of government that would pass a law expelling Jews from the country would not really be concerned what either the ECHR, or any domestic court thought about it. In fact, I suspect that this country would have become a dystopia, if such a government took power.Cyclefree said:
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.Leon said:
Oh god what a load of arse-acheCyclefree said:I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote?
2. If not, why not?
3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok?
4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK?
5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
Russia is nominally still subject to the ECHR but its rulers have been carrying out extra-judicial killings of political opponents and (in some parts) homosexuals for years. To take another example, the Nazis never formally repealed the rights granted in the Weimar constitution. They either ignored or subverted them as required.
The difference is that they did take account of the courts and understood the need for a check by an external body.
What we appear to have now is a government (and its credulous little helpers) which does not want to take account of the courts, is busy planning to reduce their power and sees no need for any sort of external check.
That is worse than what we had in the past. Things do not get worse in one great leap. They do so by small incremental steps - as I pointed out here: https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/12/09/where-the-slippery-slope-leads/
"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.”
The current government does not do either IMO and it is slowly taking steps to make sure that it can do what it likes with no checks.
We need to ask why it is doing this and what a more malign government would and could do with such powers. I am asking these questions. But far too many are just putting their fingers in their ears or saying that because this hasn't happened in the past it won't happen in the future.
As in many areas of life people believe what they would like to be true.
2 -
Which things did they want to do that were in breach of human rights and were stopped? Voting rights for prisoners does not strike me as a fundamental human right, no does nor having a full life sentence available. Is there an accepted, defined list of human rights? Principles for sure, but it’s the edge cases that are harder, as always.Cyclefree said:
But my point is that we have had democratically elected governments which wanted to do things which were in breach of human rights. They were stopped because they respected the idea of human rights and the need for a check.DavidL said:
With respect I think you are missing @Sean_F's point. We don't have and never have had a government who wanted to behave like that. If we did the ECHR would not be an impediment to them. It is a pretence that this is a slope. It is a series of cliffs. We either jump off or we don't. The Convention is an illusion at worst or an alarm bell at best, no more.Cyclefree said:
With respect, you are missing the point. We have had British governments which have on various occasions breached the human rights of groups in this country and been taken to task for this. So it is possible to have democratically elected governments which are a long way short of the full totalitarian horror story but which still breach human rights.Sean_F said:
I do think that the type of government that would pass a law expelling Jews from the country would not really be concerned what either the ECHR, or any domestic court thought about it. In fact, I suspect that this country would have become a dystopia, if such a government took power.Cyclefree said:
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.Leon said:
Oh god what a load of arse-acheCyclefree said:I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote?
2. If not, why not?
3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok?
4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK?
5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
Russia is nominally still subject to the ECHR but its rulers have been carrying out extra-judicial killings of political opponents and (in some parts) homosexuals for years. To take another example, the Nazis never formally repealed the rights granted in the Weimar constitution. They either ignored or subverted them as required.
The difference is that they did take account of the courts and understood the need for a check by an external body.
What we appear to have now is a government (and its credulous little helpers) which does not want to take account of the courts, is busy planning to reduce their power and sees no need for any sort of external check.
That is worse than what we had in the past. Things do not get worse in one great leap. They do so by small incremental steps - as I pointed out here: https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/12/09/where-the-slippery-slope-leads/
"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.”
The current government does not do either IMO and it is slowly taking steps to make sure that it can do what it likes with no checks.
We need to ask why it is doing this and what a more malign government would and could do with such powers. I am asking these questions. But far too many are just putting their fingers in their ears or saying that because this hasn't happened in the past it won't happen in the future.
As in many areas of life people believe what they would like to be true.0 -
I agree.Luckyguy1983 said:I'd bring it wholesale into British law and then make British courts the arbiters of it.
But with one caveat.
Political systems are supposed to contain checks and balances. The US has its Executive, Legislature and Judicial system, all below the Constitution. And the constitution sets out basic rights that cannot - without a supermajority - be overridden.
It's not perfect, but it makes a situation where one branch goes mad and (say) strips the Jews of all property rights less likely. Because the President can veto it, and the Courts can say that it is not compatible with the Constitution.
In the UK, the Executive and the Legislature are one and the same. And they appoint all judges, and can pass whatever laws they like.
There used to be more checks and balances in the UK. We used to have a second Chamber with at least some power to resist the Commons. But between the Parliament Act and Tony Blair that power was dramatically reduced. The Lords has relatively little power to resist the Commons these days, and if the Government wished they could force any legislation through in 24 hours, by dint of the Lords being only able to reject legislation twice.
I don't think there's another political system in the world so lacking in checks and balances: in most places, the Executive and the Legislature are separate. And in most places there is
a constitution.
So, I say, let's lose the ECHR. But not because we want to hand more power to politicians to restrict the rights of individuals. But because we want less. We want to bind the hands of those who seek to govern us, and let's do that by explicitly limiting their power.6 -
He can be VERY insulting actually. Lost count of how many times he's accused me of having a "weirdly narrow" mind. Me!Taz said:
He’s never been to me and I have never seen him be unpleasant to people before that jibe at cyclefree, who I think is an excellent thought provoking poster and even if I don’t agree with her I enjoy reading her comments.CorrectHorseBattery said:
Really? He's a nasty piece of workTaz said:
Harsh and unnecessary. Thought you better than that.Leon said:
I’m not going to address your A Level Politics Essay by writing another of my ownCyclefree said:
Once again you have no answers. Ah well.Leon said:
It was hysterical twaddle. You are better than that boilerplate liberal shriekingCyclefree said:
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.Leon said:
Oh god what a load of arse-acheCyclefree said:I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote?
2. If not, why not?
3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok?
4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK?
5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
The UK government is not considering a Holocaust. And if it was set on that road, we do have a Supreme Court which can and should intervene
Does the Supreme Court strike you as an institutional enabler of Fascism?
Enjoy your travels.
Used to bother me but no longer. Water off a ducks now. Hardly even notice. Just carry on saying what I want to say in exactly the way I want to say it.2 -
It might help if MPs in Parliament actually did their job. It might help if governments put their policies before Parliament for scrutiny.NorthofStoke said:Judicial oversight of the actions of elected politicians is always going to be a nuanced and contentious area. There are grey areas where an activist judiciary can subvert democracy irrespective of the merits of their decisions. Who will guard the guardians? That is a question that can never be satisfactorily answered.
The shenanigans of Johnson and the poor standard of contemporary politicians (including Labour) are not good for democracy but relying on the judiciary to rescue it is not a viable answer. As others have pointed out most dictatorships have excellent formal constitutions and rights for citizens.
In my opinion there is too much battling against administrative and political decisions via the courts. No big planning decision, policy change or deportation takes place without a lengthy set of legal challenges. How can the elected politicians be held accountable by the voters if their policies are never implemented in a timely manner? I'm not arguing for the opposite situation - legal challenges and judicial oversight are valuable safeguards in moderation.
I think all this is linked to the grotesque increase in the number of laws and regulations over recent decades. Our useless politicians when impotent in the face of a problem or public discontent legislate as a sort of displacement activity.
I will not repeat the various headers I have written on Parliament abandoning its role in recent years. If Parliament won't do its job little wonder that people find other ways to subject laws and decisions to scrutiny.1 -
No, they stole it as a way of blurring the boundaries between the Council of Europe, and the EU.Leon said:
They stole it very consciously - as a way of blurring the boundaries between the ECHR and the EU, thereby giving the EU a foundational constitutional document without ever asking the European people if they wanted thisrcs1000 said:
I don't mean to be all pedantic, but technically that flag is that of The Council of Europe dating back to 1949, of which we are a member.Leon said:
The Rwanda judgement was outrageous interference. For that alone, we must leaveDavidL said:On topic, it is increasingly difficult to say what this chaotic government will do while they flail about seeking to divert attention from the overflowing too hard tray but this would be particularly stupid.
Yes, the ECtHR can be annoying at times, yes there is an argument that they have extended HR law far beyond what the Convention originally intended, yes the decision on the Rwanda flight was, well, a bit weird, but jeez. If we replace it with a new Convention with different wording we will then spend another decade trying to work out the finer details that has been largely ironed out on the current Convention.
This is why Brexit
Also, for those low-watt slow learners who think the European Court of Human Rights has “nothing to do with the EU” here’s the courtroom:
The EU stole it.
That’s how the EU has nearly always accrued power and personality (so much so it is now close to nationhood) by stealth, and on the quiet.
The few times it has gone to various peoples and asked for permission, in referendums, it has often been knocked back. Hence the need for subterfuge. Cf the Lisbon Treaty0 -
The benefit of something like the ECHR is not that they could themselves restrain a proto-fascist government, but that they provide a warning for people to respond to as a government takes steps towards fascism.Sean_F said:
I do think that the type of government that would pass a law expelling Jews from the country would not really be concerned what either the ECHR, or any domestic court thought about it. In fact, I suspect that this country would have become a dystopia, if such a government took power.Cyclefree said:
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.Leon said:
Oh god what a load of arse-acheCyclefree said:I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote?
2. If not, why not?
3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok?
4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK?
5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
Russia is nominally still subject to the ECHR but its rulers have been carrying out extra-judicial killings of political opponents and (in some parts) homosexuals for years. To take another example, the Nazis never formally repealed the rights granted in the Weimar constitution. They either ignored or subverted them as required.
Obviously it still requires the population of the country to respond to that warning and prevent the march towards fascism, but having these barriers that have to be transgressed is useful to provide rallying points, otherwise it is easier for democracy to be undermined one small step at a time.1 -
Well ok yes okrcs1000 said:
No, they stole it as a way of blurring the boundaries between the Council of Europe, and the EU.Leon said:
They stole it very consciously - as a way of blurring the boundaries between the ECHR and the EU, thereby giving the EU a foundational constitutional document without ever asking the European people if they wanted thisrcs1000 said:
I don't mean to be all pedantic, but technically that flag is that of The Council of Europe dating back to 1949, of which we are a member.Leon said:
The Rwanda judgement was outrageous interference. For that alone, we must leaveDavidL said:On topic, it is increasingly difficult to say what this chaotic government will do while they flail about seeking to divert attention from the overflowing too hard tray but this would be particularly stupid.
Yes, the ECtHR can be annoying at times, yes there is an argument that they have extended HR law far beyond what the Convention originally intended, yes the decision on the Rwanda flight was, well, a bit weird, but jeez. If we replace it with a new Convention with different wording we will then spend another decade trying to work out the finer details that has been largely ironed out on the current Convention.
This is why Brexit
Also, for those low-watt slow learners who think the European Court of Human Rights has “nothing to do with the EU” here’s the courtroom:
The EU stole it.
That’s how the EU has nearly always accrued power and personality (so much so it is now close to nationhood) by stealth, and on the quiet.
The few times it has gone to various peoples and asked for permission, in referendums, it has often been knocked back. Hence the need for subterfuge. Cf the Lisbon Treaty0 -
Did you drop a pony?Cyclefree said:
It doesn't bother me. I could jibe back much harder if I wanted to. I've dealt with much tougher people than dear old Leon wandering round Armenia taking photos of meadows and old trucks.Taz said:
He’s never been to me and I have never seen him be unpleasant to people before that jibe at cyclefree, who I think is an excellent thought provoking poster and even if I don’t agree with her I enjoy reading her comments.CorrectHorseBattery said:
Really? He's a nasty piece of workTaz said:
Harsh and unnecessary. Thought you better than that.Leon said:
I’m not going to address your A Level Politics Essay by writing another of my ownCyclefree said:
Once again you have no answers. Ah well.Leon said:
It was hysterical twaddle. You are better than that boilerplate liberal shriekingCyclefree said:
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.Leon said:
Oh god what a load of arse-acheCyclefree said:I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote?
2. If not, why not?
3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok?
4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK?
5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
The UK government is not considering a Holocaust. And if it was set on that road, we do have a Supreme Court which can and should intervene
Does the Supreme Court strike you as an institutional enabler of Fascism?
Enjoy your travels.
And thank you for your comment.
Here is a photo of one of my neighbours.0 -
Having elections every 3 years like they do in Australia would be a good start in my opinion.rcs1000 said:
I agree.Luckyguy1983 said:I'd bring it wholesale into British law and then make British courts the arbiters of it.
But with one caveat.
Political systems are supposed to contain checks and balances. The US has its Executive, Legislature and Judicial system, all below the Constitution. And the constitution sets out basic rights that cannot - without a supermajority - be overridden.
It's not perfect, but it makes a situation where one branch goes mad and (say) strips the Jews of all property rights less likely. Because the President can veto it, and the Courts can say that it is not compatible with the Constitution.
In the UK, the Executive and the Legislature are one and the same. And they appoint all judges, and can pass whatever laws they like.
There used to be more checks and balances in the UK. We used to have a second Chamber with at least some power to resist the Commons. But between the Parliament Act and Tony Blair that power was dramatically reduced. The Lords has relatively little power to resist the Commons these days, and if the Government wished they could force any legislation through in 24 hours, by dint of the Lords being only able to reject legislation twice.
I don't think there's another political system in the world so lacking in checks and balances: in most places, the Executive and the Legislature are separate. And in most places there is
a constitution.
So, I say, let's lose the ECHR. But not because we want to hand more power to politicians to restrict the rights of individuals. But because we want less. We want to bind the hands of those who seek to govern us, and let's do that by explicitly limiting their power.0 -
We'be had three in the last seven years, what more do you want?Andy_JS said:
Having elections every 3 years like they do in Australia would be a good start in my opinion.rcs1000 said:
I agree.Luckyguy1983 said:I'd bring it wholesale into British law and then make British courts the arbiters of it.
But with one caveat.
Political systems are supposed to contain checks and balances. The US has its Executive, Legislature and Judicial system, all below the Constitution. And the constitution sets out basic rights that cannot - without a supermajority - be overridden.
It's not perfect, but it makes a situation where one branch goes mad and (say) strips the Jews of all property rights less likely. Because the President can veto it, and the Courts can say that it is not compatible with the Constitution.
In the UK, the Executive and the Legislature are one and the same. And they appoint all judges, and can pass whatever laws they like.
There used to be more checks and balances in the UK. We used to have a second Chamber with at least some power to resist the Commons. But between the Parliament Act and Tony Blair that power was dramatically reduced. The Lords has relatively little power to resist the Commons these days, and if the Government wished they could force any legislation through in 24 hours, by dint of the Lords being only able to reject legislation twice.
I don't think there's another political system in the world so lacking in checks and balances: in most places, the Executive and the Legislature are separate. And in most places there is
a constitution.
So, I say, let's lose the ECHR. But not because we want to hand more power to politicians to restrict the rights of individuals. But because we want less. We want to bind the hands of those who seek to govern us, and let's do that by explicitly limiting their power.3 -
Crimes no, five is bad enough for short termism, and the inability to do long, hard projects.Andy_JS said:
Having elections every 3 years like they do in Australia would be a good start in my opinion.rcs1000 said:
I agree.Luckyguy1983 said:I'd bring it wholesale into British law and then make British courts the arbiters of it.
But with one caveat.
Political systems are supposed to contain checks and balances. The US has its Executive, Legislature and Judicial system, all below the Constitution. And the constitution sets out basic rights that cannot - without a supermajority - be overridden.
It's not perfect, but it makes a situation where one branch goes mad and (say) strips the Jews of all property rights less likely. Because the President can veto it, and the Courts can say that it is not compatible with the Constitution.
In the UK, the Executive and the Legislature are one and the same. And they appoint all judges, and can pass whatever laws they like.
There used to be more checks and balances in the UK. We used to have a second Chamber with at least some power to resist the Commons. But between the Parliament Act and Tony Blair that power was dramatically reduced. The Lords has relatively little power to resist the Commons these days, and if the Government wished they could force any legislation through in 24 hours, by dint of the Lords being only able to reject legislation twice.
I don't think there's another political system in the world so lacking in checks and balances: in most places, the Executive and the Legislature are separate. And in most places there is
a constitution.
So, I say, let's lose the ECHR. But not because we want to hand more power to politicians to restrict the rights of individuals. But because we want less. We want to bind the hands of those who seek to govern us, and let's do that by explicitly limiting their power.1 -
Come through sideways but that is a very sweet looking horse. Not a natural animal lover but it makes me want to put out my hand with a sugar cube in it.Cyclefree said:
It doesn't bother me. I could jibe back much harder if I wanted to. I've dealt with much tougher people than dear old Leon wandering round Armenia taking photos of meadows and old trucks.Taz said:
He’s never been to me and I have never seen him be unpleasant to people before that jibe at cyclefree, who I think is an excellent thought provoking poster and even if I don’t agree with her I enjoy reading her comments.CorrectHorseBattery said:
Really? He's a nasty piece of workTaz said:
Harsh and unnecessary. Thought you better than that.Leon said:
I’m not going to address your A Level Politics Essay by writing another of my ownCyclefree said:
Once again you have no answers. Ah well.Leon said:
It was hysterical twaddle. You are better than that boilerplate liberal shriekingCyclefree said:
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.Leon said:
Oh god what a load of arse-acheCyclefree said:I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote?
2. If not, why not?
3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok?
4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK?
5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
The UK government is not considering a Holocaust. And if it was set on that road, we do have a Supreme Court which can and should intervene
Does the Supreme Court strike you as an institutional enabler of Fascism?
Enjoy your travels.
And thank you for your comment.
Here is a photo of one of my neighbours.0 -
As predicted….
“No one in the parliamentary Labour party is advocating a policy of rejoining the EU. But there are those who would like to see closer involvement with the single market under a Labour government, and a return to EU free-movement rules, particularly as evidence grows that Brexit is harming trade, and contributing to rising prices”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/19/labour-cannot-make-peoples-lives-better-until-it-dares-to-start-talking-about-brexit0 -
Surely you mean on Cap Blanc Nez ...Taz said:
‘Priti Patels rating in red wall seats is -25 because what she id doing is populism, not popular.’CorrectHorseBattery said:A new bit of polling to add to the analysis - Rwanda policy low down the list of things that matters to voters. Behind cost of living, NHS backlogs, and climate change.
https://twitter.com/samfr/status/1538528114183127046
https://twitter.com/Samfr/status/1538446790860713984?s=20&t=IgBUmERy8Dk2juyT_WlPIA
This can’t be true according to the PB red wall experts who don’t live in it and have never visited it but know what the red wall thinks and wants. Surely all red wall voters want machine guns on the white cliffs of,Dover.
Also: it's a clear marker line. No doubt, least of all to the perpetrator, that the perpetrator has crossed that line.kle4 said:
If we're going with analogies I might describe it more as a fence. You can bypass or hurdle it, but not without hassle and potential risks to yourself, but remove it and it's that much easier to just charge on through.DavidL said:
Sounds like an alarm bell to me. And they can be quite useful at times. I am not suggesting otherwise.kle4 said:
I think it would be unfair to call it a mere illusion or alarm bell. I agree that a government that wanted to do such things would not be prevented by the ECHR, but as part of a general erosion of expectations removing steps that currently are complied with could form part of a pattern wherein standards slip further and further.DavidL said:
With respect I think you are missing @Sean_F's point. We don't have and never have had a government who wanted to behave like that. If we did the ECHR would not be an impediment to them. It is a pretence that this is a slope. It is a series of cliffs. We either jump off or we don't. The Convention is an illusion at worst or an alarm bell at best, no more.Cyclefree said:
With respect, you are missing the point. We have had British governments which have on various occasions breached the human rights of groups in this country and been taken to task for this. So it is possible to have democratically elected governments which are a long way short of the full totalitarian horror story but which still breach human rights.Sean_F said:
I do think that the type of government that would pass a law expelling Jews from the country would not really be concerned what either the ECHR, or any domestic court thought about it. In fact, I suspect that this country would have become a dystopia, if such a government took power.Cyclefree said:
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.Leon said:
Oh god what a load of arse-acheCyclefree said:I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote?
2. If not, why not?
3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok?
4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK?
5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
Russia is nominally still subject to the ECHR but its rulers have been carrying out extra-judicial killings of political opponents and (in some parts) homosexuals for years. To take another example, the Nazis never formally repealed the rights granted in the Weimar constitution. They either ignored or subverted them as required.
The difference is that they did take account of the courts and understood the need for a check by an external body.
What we appear to have now is a government (and its credulous little helpers) which does not want to take account of the courts, is busy planning to reduce their power and sees no need for any sort of external check.
That is worse than what we had in the past. Things do not get worse in one great leap. They do so by small incremental steps - as I pointed out here: https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/12/09/where-the-slippery-slope-leads/
"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.”
Or perhaps the canary in the mine. When it's keeled over, you know something is wrong.0
