The Conservative Government wants to remove one of the very few actual documents setting out the rights of the British people. It’s no surprise that the powerful and the privileged wish to remove certain rights from the people. The powerful never like things that stand in their way and the privileged never like feeling equal.
So far, we know there is a 40-odd page document laying out a new Bill of Rights. That’s all that we know about it: its length. It likely contains fewer rights and protections than the current Human Rights Act. An educated guess suggests if this was merely an expansion they would simply amend the current law.
Forty pages is an extremely long document. The US constitution and bill of rights is much shorter, though admittedly it has poorly written sections that have caused our society no end of grief. “A well regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free state” is a waffle of an introduction to the second amendment and nobody can agree on exactly what it means. But having read plenty of draft legislation I wonder if it’s not clarity alone that conservatives are working towards.
They may not just be attempting to define what level of reduction in rights the British people ought to be subjected to but also attempting to define in what situations those rights are to be voided. Rights are
wonderful things but exercising them is often inconvenient for the privileged and powerful.
It’s why the administration of George W Bush began setting up “Free Speech Zones” during his events. People had the right to protest but only if they agreed to go to a location where they wouldn’t be seen or heard. So we must ask whether a 40 page draft contains weasel words and legal language designed to water down the British Bill of Rights. Whether they’re not just defining the rights but who will be privileged enough to enjoy those rights and in what circumstances.
Te rights created by the UDHR provide a diplomatic tool, one that can be used to pressure or cajole states into respecting the rights of their citizens.
To stop the Tories from creating a dangerous precedent where each new government can redefine the rights of British citizens to its hearts content is the duty of every member of the House of Commons who values civil rights, regardless of which party they claim membership in. To stand against it in parliament
June 2015
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