Liberal Democrat Party Conference
Liberty Fringe Event 2011: DEFENDING THE HUMAN RIGHTS ACT
Speakers: Rt Hon Sir Menzies Campbell CBE QC MP, Rt Hon Tom Brake MP, Dr Julian Huppert MP, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (Journalist and author), Shami Chakrabarti (Chair).
*FULL TRANSCRIPT*
Shami Chakrabarti (Director of Liberty):
Welcome to a great highlight in our annual Liberty calendar, to our annual fringe at your Lib Dem conference. I hope the fact that it is so well attended yet again, is some sign of your continuing commitment to our values at Liberty - our shared values - and some positive signal of continuing commitment in the future.
Sir Menzies Campbell CBE QC MP:
Breaches of human law are ritually condemned by British governments of all colours when they happen in other countries.
But there's a paradox here. We want others to accept and to implement and to observe human rights, but at home in recent time we have seen an almost irrational attack, not on particular human rights but on the very principle.
Rt Hon Tom Brake MP:
We had a very interesting fringe about extremism at lunch time today where an ex-BNP activist said that, I mean, their arguments were simply to go to people and say "well you have heard about the asylum seekers getting flat screen TVs haven't you? And they're all getting free BMWs as well", and those were the arguments they were using. Well, sometimes, some of the arguments that are used both against the Human Rights Act and Europe generally, smack a little bit of that in terms of how accurate they are.
Dr Julian Huppert MP:
You get all these phrases that human rights are for criminals not for victims. It's the same rights, they just apply slightly differently, you know, I don't want to have the rights to have somebody else's freedom, its mine that I want...
There are some things where we can make progress if Labour back us, we can help, but if we're the only people standing up for something, really hard to get anywhere. So on this bill we're talking about control orders -- hideous things -- and the Labour shadow minister said "sometimes it is essential to have people outside the legal framework". That's rather frightening.
There is an excellent piece that Liberty produced describing them [UDHR/ Human rights? 2.12] as Churchill's greatest legacy, because it was Churchill who, you know, former liberal - you may remember, you may have heard of him -- who had a really key role in pulling it [UDHR? 2.22] together. This wasn't Europe saying to Britain you must be more European, it was exactly the opposite way round, the whole idea was it was us saying to them "this is the British way, these are the things that are British, you should all stick up to that". The idea that we're now trying to say oh it's not really for us is really quite terrifying.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (Journalist and author):
I'm very pleased that the Lib Dems are as clear as they are on nothing changes with the Human Rights Act, but not a day, not a week goes by without the Prime Minister of our country and his henchmen -- I think somebody called them the extremist wing of the Tory party, I don't know who it was -- saying that they are going to replace it with the Bill of Rights. And in so far I haven't heard from the Lib Dem MPs what they will do in that situation, it seems to me...
JH: Vote against it
SC: Sorry could you say that into the microphone please
JH: I'd vote against it, very simple
YAB: Would it be your, is it the party, or is it
TB: It's party policy
YAB: Is it party policy? Ok, well that's reassuring.
Shami Chakrabarti:
I'd just say to that gentleman, I'm glad that you have that confidence, and we all want to have that confidence, but the devil is always in the detail. And I say to you that you can stay signatory to the ECHR, you can have a British Bill of Rights that completely incorporates the ECHR but you can take the guts out of the Human Rights Act, which is the enforcement mechanisms, and nobody talks about this. You could have a beautiful piece of poetry called a British Bill of Rights, it incorporates the ECHR and adds lots of other rights to the side, but you could take away the ability of British judges to enforce it in this country. So the devil is sometimes in the detail, and I don't want you, or any of your lovely colleagues here today, or future generations to be swindled out of their rights protection in this country.
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Liberty Labour Fringe 2011: A CUT TOO FARby LibertyHumanRights105 views
Seriously this is no joke. Cultural marxism and globalism is slowly destroying Britain, Europe and the West. If you or our future children do not want to be puppets for the globalist elite who will take your culture, identity, earnings and effectively your entire existence then you should vote for a true national party. It's simple, globalist or nationalist. Make your choice or your country will die of a thousand cuts run by people controling these 5 puppets.
Sheila1932 3 months ago