Monday 8 July 2013

Abu Qatada and Theresa May who is the most dangerous?

Well Abu Qatada has finally left the country, in the end went voluntarily and didn't fight the last attempt. You could argue that he saw that the UK had done enough to ensure a fair trial and so decided to leave and not waste public money frivolously, personally I doubt it, perhaps he has worked out that with time served he'll be free in Jordan sooner than here. Whatever his decision making process we owe him a debt of gratitude, through his struggle UK law has now been brought up to a standard where it reflects our intentional obligations, the obligations we entered into as a nation of our own free will.
No sooner has May found that the Human Rights act does not allow her to do what she wants than she talks about scrapping it. Which of our human rights does she want to remove, which layer of protection from the vagaries of government ministers out to make capital does she want to remove.
The issue was very simple and the attitude of the UK was set long before the human rights act came into being. The UK does not in any way support torture and will not under an circumstances place somebody in a position where they might be tortured or information gained by torture used against them. To make sure that politicians and the government kept to that, the government joined a system where an impartial 3rd party would check the UKs compliance. Theresa May is unhappy that this independent body pointed out that deporting Abu Qatada to Jordan would be a breach of the UKs commitments. So her plan seems to be to get rid of the oversight, which would leave us at the mercy of politicians.
If HMG was only required to uphold human rights of those people it likes, then every time a government changed a different group of people would become vulnerable to abuse. While starting off with it may only be Qatada and Co, the pernicious corrosive effect would eat its way down so that if not you then your grandchildren would be vulnerable.
The Tories like to claim to be proud of the British legal system and some of the principles of English law but when those principles conflict with their bigotry they will happily throw those principles out of the window. How can the Tory backbenchers be proud of things they are so willing to ditch?
So what is May saying that the body that decided was at fault in law or is she saying she does not want the UK to oppose torture? The Abu Qatada case should prompt HMG to look at our relationships with all the countries of the world and make sure that we can be sure that we do not accidentally encourage torture of anyone, to make sure that no one can hide behind the inadequacies of UK law. It should not be used as a way of Tories buying popularity by betraying principles.
Once again thanks to Abu Qatada UK law is improved, if May get her way then it will be degraded and the principles for which the Tories believe England stands for will be made weaker.

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