New Labour Hasn’t Gone Anywhere
Guy Aitchison suggests that now the new Shadow Cabinet has been announced, there remains serious cause for concern about the post-Blair/Brown Labour Party on the civil liberties front:
Balls has been given the shadow home secretary role, shadowing Theresa May. As the man responsible for the dreadful vetting and barring scheme as children’s minister (now mercifully killed off by the coalition) he has always struck me as one of those authoritarian wannabe “hard-men” at the top of New Labour. His voting record shows he was a supporter of ID cards, 90 days detention, and all the rest of the last government’s draconian anti-terror laws and his urge will be to tack to the right on immigration, as he did during his leadership campaign.
Given the pitiful absence of liberals in the mix, though, we may just have to be grateful that the role didn’t fall to Alan Johnson who goaded the Coalition back in June for being “obsessed” with civil liberties, accusing it of being the “political wing of Liberty”. And there are some small, and surprising, glimmers of liberalism from Balls who, as the Guardian’s Alan Travis pointed out to me on Twitter, is against ASBOs and for a welfare approach to youth justice.
I haven’t seen any redeeming qualities about the ‘new’ (reshuffled) gathering of unreformed civil liberties deniers. And then there’s Phil Woolas, who George Eaton is far more than just ‘concerned’ about:
Having run one of the most disgraceful election campaigns in recent history, Woolas is currently fighting an attempt to have his victory overturned by his Lib Dem opponent on the grounds of “corrupt practices”. He has consistently denied breaking electoral law to secure his seat and said it would have been “political suicide” to do so.
Below is the demagogic leaflet published by Woolas’s campaign, which, according to his defeated opponent, Elwyn Watkins, suggested that the Lib Dems were courting support from Islamist extremists.The text reads:
Extremists are trying to hijack this election. They want you to vote Lib Dem to punish Phil for being strong on immigration. The Lib Dems plan to give hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants the right to stay. It is up to you? Do you want the extremists to win?
Legal documents submitted to the High Court argue that there was a calculated attempt by the Woolas campaign to whip up racial tensions in a bid to get the “white vote” behind him.
An email by Woolas’s election agent, Joseph Fitzpatrick, to the candidate declared: “we need … to explain to the white community how the Asians will take him out … If we don’t get the white vote angry he’s gone.” Another from Fitzpatrick to Steve Green, the MP’s campaign adviser, said: “we need to go strong on the militant Moslem (sic) angle” and proposed the headline “Militant Moslems (sic) target Woolas.”
A verdict on the case is expected on 5 November and defeat for Woolas would see him expelled from Parliament and a by-election held in the highly marginal seat of Oldham East and Saddleworth. Regardless of the morality of his appointment, the pragmatic case against appointing an MP currently subject to a court action is clear. The court may yet find in Woolas’s favour, but his presence on Labour’s frontbench is hard to see as anything but a serious mistake.
On the face of it Ed Miliband’s rise as Labour leader suggested lessons had been learned. He attacked the Blair regime for having gone to war in Iraq, he said he understood there had been a problem with New Labour’s approach to civil liberties, and repeatedly said he ‘got’ people’s fundamental issues with New Labour’s instinct to control and bully. His appointments though seem to show a different side to him – there was briefly a rumour that Andy Burnham had been offered the Shadow Home Secretary role which would really have been catastrophic – one which suggests that he may have the right instincts personally, but is prepared cravenly to give in to the authoritarian tendencies still prevailing in his parliamentary party. If, as expected, Labour attacks the ConDem coalition on civil liberities from the Right, the Labour Party will remain unelectable.
Why Attack the Calais Refugees?
When we dehumanise other human beings we lose part of what makes us human. If I had the time and resources I would have gladly attended the protests at the ‘Jungle’ outside Calais, the camp from which the mainly Afghan refugees were forcibly removed this week. Sadly though I had to watch from afar again, as people in search of a better life were deemed unacceptable, and unworthy of the human rights to which they are entitled. Jason Parkinson’s piece below shows you the brutal reality of what happened:
When French immigration minister Eric Besson calls the Calais “jungle” camp clearance a “dignified” success, Alan Johnson expresses his “delight” and immigration minister Phil Woolas questions whether these refugees deserve sanctuary, they expose the asylum system as profoundly broken.
What I saw at 8am on Tuesday was not dignified or humane. Men were wrestled and thrown to the ground, others head-locked and throttled. One boy collapsed and was removed. Not by the police, but by protesters.
As Parkinson points out, EU law says that asylum seekers must claim asylum in the first country they land in. But it’s an horrific cop out to suggest to people genuinely fleeing persecution in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq or Eritrea (few of whom will do so by air) can only claim asylum in member states which are essentially the closest to them. Italy? With its current persecution of Roma? Greece? With its treatment of refugees? That system has resulted in:
illegal push-backs of migrants at the Turkish border, the puncturing of boats in the Aegean Sea, deplorable conditions of detention, police brutality, and various legal and administrative tricks to keep asylum seekers from lodging a claim, all of which Human Rights Watch exhaustively documented in two reports published late last year.
The Dublin Convention is clearly a failure, yet Britain and France express delight at the prospect of sending refugees back to the first EU country they entered, which in many cases for refugees formerly living in the Calais ‘jungle’ was Greece. This is particularly alarming considering many fellow EU governments have stopped transferring asylum seekers back there. Yet immigration minister Phil Woolas:
rejected suggestions that (even) those (merely) with family links should be allowed to come to Britain to claim asylum: “If they were asylum seekers they would have claimed asylum in France or in the first country they came to,” he said. The home secretary said “genuine refugees” would be offered protection if they claimed asylum in the first safe country they reached. The rest were expected to go home.
Such compassion. No doubt there will be economic migrants in their number, no doubt hardened criminals too. But to dismiss the genuine needs and concerns of refugees, and falling back on an asylum system which benefits neither refugee nor host country is just monstrous. Green Party leader Caroline Lucas MEP has spoken out, saying:
“Rather than fulfilling their responsibilities to seekers of asylum under both EU and international law, the French and British governments are turning a blind eye to the suffering taking place on their own doorsteps. Home Secretary Alan Johnson‘s glee in the wake of this aggressive police raid is particularly disturbing.
“The plan for mass deportations of these refugees rides roughshod over the European Convention on Human Rights, the 1951 Refugee Convention and the Geneva Convention. And given that so many facing expulsion are children, the plans may also breach the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
“This short term ‘solution’ is not only inhumane – it will not work. The French are not playing their part in allowing people to claim asylum in Calais, and must commit to making the official procedures for seeking asylum more accessible to those in need. Equally, other EU Member states must recognise their duty to share the responsibility.”
Protests against the UK Border Agency have taken place here, here here and here. There is continuing coverage by Calais Migrant Solidarity here.
