The Right Thing?

There have been gains as well as losses, and it hardly as if Jonathan Sumption has ever been One of Us. But his critique of the human rights industry is largely well-made.

Nothing that was largely written by David Maxwell Fyfe ever did have anything to do with the Left. Not the European Union into which he so castigated Anthony Eden for not having taken Britain at the start. And not this, either.

There was a reason why the incorporation of such things into British domestic law was never attempted by any Labour Government until that of Tony Blair. It duly proved useless as civil liberties were shredded; it was the dear old House of Commons that stopped the detention of people for 42 days without charge.

And it duly proved useless as the poor, the sick and the disabled were persecuted on a scale and with a venom that had not been seen since before the War, if ever. That persecution has of course continued into and as the age of austerity. Against that, human rights legislation has been of only the most occasional use, if any. That has always been the intention.

In May 1948, the pompously self-styled Congress of Europe assembled in the Hall of Knights, in The Hague. Addressing that assembly, Winston Churchill called it "the Voice of Europe". But in fact it was mostly made up of politicians who had recently been defeated at the polls, of the representatives of Royal and Noble Houses that had fairly recently been dispossessed at least in political terms, of the likes of Churchill who fell into both categories, and of people whose lives' work was trying to delude themselves that so did they.

In the name of the order that had held sway for a century between the defeat of Napoleon and the First World War, their aim was very explicitly to check the Social Democracy that was sweeping Western Europe at the time. The material that they produced had that intention, and it has had that effect. Lo and behold, Tony Blair had it written into British domestic law.

And lo and behold, the body that he created for its enforcement, when it is not sacking black and disabled staff first, and when it is not failing to find anything wrong with the Government's handling of the Windrush scandal, is now trying to bring down Jeremy Corbyn. Not that Corbyn is necessarily helping himself by backing down when he ought to be fighting back.

"Equality and Human Rights"? What equality, exactly? Certainly not economic equality, and there can never be any without that. I did tell you that I was not of the same political persuasion as Lord Sumption.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare.

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.