Human rights

The issue of sovereignty has mysteriously disappeared from the debate over Brexit. Some business-focused commentators even like to assert that in a ‘global, interconnected world’, sovereignty is meaningless. But a court judgment, delivered earlier this month, perfectly illustrates what is at stake. The case is about national security. Specifically, it is about the legality of techniques used to identify and disrupt people intent on unleashing terror: the kind of terror we have seen recently in Manchester, Westminster, Borough Market and Parsons Green. The technique at issue is the bulk collection of communications data (BCD). This data is the ‘who’, ‘where’, ‘when’ and ‘with whom’ of communications, not what was written or said.

The Government plans to scrap plans to scrap plans to scrap the Human Rights Act. Here we go again. Following snugly in the footsteps of her two predecessors as Lord Chancellor, Liz Truss has promised to implement the so-called 'British Bill of Rights' in its place. There were never good reasons for this policy, but at one stage there were at least some bad reasons. Now, even they have run out. The European Convention on Human Rights affirms the rights to life, a fair trial and freedom of expression, among others. Until 1998, a Brit who thought their human rights had been violated needed to exhaust all their legal options at home before fighting to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights. On average, that took five years and cost £30,000.

When the model and actress Anastasia Lin was crowned Miss World Canada last year, a fairly easy and lucrative career lay in front of her: magazine shoots, sponsorship opportunities and being paid to turn up to parties. She instead decided to use her position to confront the Chinese Communist party and call out its human rights abuses. Her new film The Bleeding Edge is a feature-length dramatisation about the organ trade in China. It might not be in a cinema near you soon, but it does screen in the House of Commons next week, in front of MPs and peers. And this is the audience that 26-year-old Lin is seeking. Her website has the slogan ‘beauty with a purpose’, and Lin has both in abundance. Speaking from Toronto before her visit here, she tells me her unlikely story.

One of the most appealing arguments for Brexit is that it will make British citizens freer than they are now. The greatness of Great Britain lies, after all, in its long history of relative freedom. But now, so the proponents of Brexit like to claim, Britain is shackled by the tyranny of the EU, as though ‘Brussels’ were some alien dictatorship in which Britain plays no part. Columnists huff that Britain is now just a colony of this ‘foreign superpower’. That the EU exists as a superpower would come as news to most people in Brussels — and everywhere else. The European Union has no army and no joint foreign policy, and cannot be described as a state, federal or otherwise.

Looked at from the narrow perspective of how to deal with the lethal business of human trafficking across the Aegean, this week’s deal between the EU and Turkey shows some encouraging signs. Slowly, the EU seems to be realising that the surest way to stop migrants dying in unseaworthy boats is to adopt similar measures to those used by Tony Abbott the former Australian Prime Minister: turn back the boats, and deport those who land illegally. The Australians paid Malaysia to help handle the migrant problem. The EU is paying Turkey more than £4 billion over the next three years to contain 2.5 million refugees. The problem, however, is that Turkey is being offered more than money.

Before the election, the Tories talked about introducing a British Bill of Rights in their first 100 days in office. But eight months on from the election, the government hasn’t even started consulting on it yet. Some of this delay is understandable. When Michael Gove was made Justice Secretary, he wanted to work out his own solution to this problem. But the timetable has just kept slipping. After the election, we were told proposals would come in the autumn. Then, it was before the end of the year. Then in December, in the New Year. Yet, we still haven’t seen these proposals—and won’t in the next few weeks either. But, as I write in The Sun this morning, the bill is now pretty much ready.

People go on about the awful pressure of 24/7 media on our leaders, and how hard the constant scrutiny must be to bear. But politicians and civil servants know that more means less. As more news sites and tweeters repeat the same stories, and millions of 'diverse' voices say the same thing, the basics of power go unexamined. Take the ministerial code, which guides the conduct of politicians in office. It is one of the fundamentals of public life. The opposition (such as it is) and the media can use it as a stick to beat the government. The prime minister can fire ministers who break it. 'Ministers of the Crown are expected to behave in a way that upholds the highest standards of propriety,' it begins. OK, but how?