Sunday 31 May 2015

NEWS: The British Bill of Rights (or how Human Rights are not so universal after all)


Photo: The Procrastinator Times ©


UK's new government isn't wasting any time says Thomas Gorton in Dazed Magazine, "Boris Johnson has shut down ten fire stations in London, Iain Duncan Smith is pressing on with his plan to cut £12 billion of welfare funding and Michael Gove – a man who once wrote of his support for hanging – is in charge of scrapping the Human Rights Act, a law that's been in place since 1998 to ensure that our human rights are protected." But now the Tory party wants to replace the Human Rights Act with a "British Bill Of Rights".

Gorton asked Bella Sankey, director of policy at human rights organisation Liberty, what that change in law might mean for her. This is a small extract of her thoughts: "At best, the repeal plans are merely a vapid attempt to indulge xenophobia and English nationalism. At worst, they’re a conscious bid by Government ministers to unilaterally renounce the universality of human rights and choose when and to whom they apply. As well as diminishing all of our rights, axing the Act would give a green light to tyrannical despots the world over – if UK leaders think it’s fine to limit human rights to certain groups, why shouldn’t they?" Read full article in Dazed. E.T.P. 3'

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