‘UK’s Rwanda Bill incompatible with human rights obligations… damning report by MPs warns.’ So ran the headline yesterday morning, referring to the report released by the joint human rights select committee on the Safety of Rwanda Bill. As often happens, however, immediate appearances can deceive.
Constitutionally, the UK is administered by a ministry with the confidence of the House of Commons, not by committees captured by the progressive establishment
The striking feature of this report is that, even though it came from a select committee, it could have been penned by Amnesty International or another similar radical human rights pressure group.
The ECHR and other human rights treaties, it insists, must be followed at all costs and to the letter. What about the increasingly plausible suggestion that Strasbourg judges, captured by a progressive and at times anti-democratic establishment, have interpreted the convention in a way that would have been unrecognisable when we signed it in 1951? That, apparently, is an antediluvian ‘originalist’ fantasy, to be rejected out of hand.
What about the idea that decisions on vital issues like asylum abuse and its effects on the existing population might be better taken by ministers with voters’ views in mind? Certainly not: things like this belong firmly in the hands of judges and courts, informed by academics and the UN great and good. What about the argument that interim Strasbourg remedies of the type that stopped the first Rwanda flight in 2022 are actually remarkably dodgy as a matter of interpretation of the ECHR? Strasbourg has said they’re binding: that’s it. We must shut up and loyally toe the line.
How could a supposedly staid committee of the UK Parliament produce a document of this kind? Actually, it was depressingly predictable. Many people may vaguely believe that select committees produce reports that are masterpieces of gravitas and detachment, expressions of considered and balanced opinion, free from the influences of the political circus. Unfortunately, in the vast majority of cases they do nothing of the sort. They are, after all, composed of active politicians, all of whom, save genuine independent MPs in the Commons (who are very rare) and crossbenchers in the Lords, come with party affiliations. And membership of these committees tends to be attractive to those who already have bees in their bonnet about the relevant subject matter.
With the joint human rights committee, this is true in spades. Of its 12 members, only five are Tories. Of the other seven, all are of a type to have strong views supporting the human rights establishment. Four are Labour, including vociferous left-wingers like Bell Ribeiro-Addy and Baroness Kennedy KC; there is one Lib Dem peer drawn from the quangocracy; and the chair is radical lawyer and SNP stalwart Joanna Cherry KC. The only non-party-affiliated member is crossbencher Lord Alton. No wonder this body expresses loathing for the Rwanda Bill. Its report bears all the hallmarks of something drafted by a committed progressive lawyer, and it probably was. A number of the Tories on the committee, to their credit, voted against aspects of it.
Faced with this, how should Rishi react? The answer is clear: he must pointedly ignore this report for the political gesture that it is and press on. Constitutionally, the UK is administered by a ministry with the confidence of the House of Commons, not by committees captured by the progressive establishment.
Rishi needs to shout this loud and clear and express his commitment to carry out the will of the people who elected his government rather than an elite who would prefer to frustrate it.
Should he be worried about the dark threat from the committee that the UK’s reputation will be shredded unless its government undertakes to loyally follow human rights norms? Could this deprive us of any right to criticise China, for example, in its brutal treatment of North Korean fugitives? Actually, no.
Those who think this way are, one suspects, largely paid-up members of the human rights establishment who live and socialise in its comfortable milieu. Most people in the UK, especially working people affected disproportionately by the breakdown of effective migration controls, look at matters rather differently. Do they despise, say, Australia, which pretty consistently breaks the Refugee Convention and defies the human rights establishment with its firm immigration controls? It seems doubtful. And people are quite able to see what is wrong with brutal and unpleasant regimes such as China without looking at matters through human rights glasses.
Of course, there is one non-establishment group that does strongly support the UK’s meticulous following of every human rights norm as interpreted by the ECHR and the UN. That is, the people smugglers and those who pay them, together with those who want to game our immigration system. The human rights committee, when it next thinks of preciously demanding unquestioning adherence to human rights at all costs, might ask whether this is the kind of company it really wants to keep.
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