Tagged with Human Rights

The “right to free movement”

The British Empire was a source of large-scale migrations to satisfy labour markets.

The British Empire was a source of large-scale migrations to satisfy labour markets.

There have been recent signs of a change of tone in the Labour leadership on the question of freedom of movement. Some have opposed any sort of controls but in recent months John McDonnell has spoken of “managed migration” and Keir Starmer has said that when it comes to freedom of movement within the single market we should be “open to adjustments”. It is time to dig a bit deeper into the underlying assumptions. Continue reading →

Tory Trade Union bill is an attack on a fundamental human right

Workers-Rights-are-Human-Rights-e1363086471974Under the Tories’ proposed new law, strike ballots would need a 50% turnout for industrial action to be legal. But in the case of ‘essential’ public services – health, education, transport and fire services – 40% of those voting have to have voted in favour. In other words, 80% which is the combination of the general turnout proposal and the new 40% yes vote must have voted in favour. That would make almost all strikes illegal, particularly in large and dispersed workforces where postal ballots rarely achieve this. This is a blatant attack on the rightful role of trade unions in being able to protect their members against exploitation at work – several recent polls have consistently found that more than 70% of the public believe unions are ‘essential to protect workers’ interests’. Continue reading →

The economics of hypocrisy and why the sheikdoms have to go

AbdullahPaying close attention to politics you become immune to the dollops of lick spittle and cretinous behaviour that comes with it. Yesterday, however, didn’t only take the biscuit but dribbled great dollops of gob over it. Remember when the Dear Leader died and great numbers of presidents and prime ministers queued up to praise his rancid regime? Nope, me neither. Then why the hell is the government and the British establishment they represent flying flags at half-mast and gibbering pious praise for the late and very much unlamented Abdullah ibn Abdilaziz Al Saud, the self-styled King of Saudi Arabia? Continue reading →

Tory extremists go for broke over European Court of Human Rights

echr_judgesIt has been said that Grayling’s inveighing against the European Court of Human Rights is to spike UKIP’s guns in denouncing the EU. It is much more likely to be spurred on by another Tory personality trait – the unyielding demand for control to mould everything in their own image:

  • They concede greater devolution to Scotland, but only at the expense of neutering Scottish MPs at Westminster to secure their own semi-permanent dominance in England.
  • They are prepared (or at least some of them) to tolerate the EU exclusively as a trading bloc, but only on condition of junking the social, environmental and labour standards that go with it.
  • They’ll put up grudgingly with trade unions, but only so long as they have little or no power to be effective.
  • They want charities and voluntary groups to blossom in the Big Society, but then use the Lobbying Act to try to choke them off from having any political influence.
  • They pretend to be champions of liberty, but then keep trying to push through the intelligence-gathering Snoopers Act to hoover up all the communications of every single citizen.
  • And now they want to exit the ECHR and become the only European state except Belarus to dump this fundamental statement of human rights, so that they can re-write their own version to suit their own prejudices, for example to dispense with any rights for trade unionists.

Continue reading →

After Gaza, some accounting

The Israeli bombGazaardment of Gaza may have left the headlines, but only now is the full story of destruction and abuse coming to light. The Russell Tribunal on Palestine has been meeting in emergency session in Brussels, taking evidence on Israel’s Operation Protective Edge.

It has found evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The tribunal’s Jury reported:

The cumulative effect of the long-standing regime of collective punishment in Gaza appears to inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about the incremental destruction of the Palestinians as a group in Gaza.”

Continue reading →