Colleagues,
It is time. It is time for us to enjoy the dithering of the Tory party as it swings left and right like a headless chicken. But it is also time for us to set out clearly where Labour stands. The mumble of cabinet ministers on human rights give us a chance to do this.
This country has no future on its own – economically, politically, militarily or morally. We create less than four per cent of the world’s GDP. Our economic importance is declining. Ultimately, our influence will become more aligned with our economic position. Globalisation has already created major shifts first in wealth: influence will follow. Other countries do not have the historic commitment of our country to human rights or democracy. The size of China’s economy will overtake that of the US within a short period of time. The global dominance of western values is likely to follow the money – downwards unless we make a concerted effort to protect it now.
We desperately need maximum leverage for both our economy and our ideals. They go together. We were the world’s first globalised economy: we remain integrally built into the patterns of global trade. There is no hiding for us behind national barriers of the kind that protect Norway, Switzerland or, God help us, Belarus (the only European state outside the European Convention). We are fated to be world players with reducing economic power. Were it not for our status as the ally of the United States, we would have lost our seat on the UN council already. We need to recognise our vulnerability and maximise our influence.
The values of the European Convention on Human Rights are our values. They are the values that nigh on half a million of our citizens died for in the Second World War. No slavery, no torture, no forced labour. The Convention sets out absolute prohibitions like these. It sets out also the necessary balances, for example, between privacy and freedom of speech. Everyone, even conservative ministers, say that they have no problem with the convention as drawn up.
You cannot hold to the values of the Convention without the Convention itself. Integral to its structure is the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. That provides the iron hand within the velvet glove that binds the values of the 47 states of the Council of Europe together. Of course, many states groan under the weight. Turkey objects to restrictions on its fights with the Kurds. Russia wants to discriminate against homosexuals. The Convention – and the opprobrium of casting it aside – is the one effective international instrument holding these nations at least to the ideals of human rights – however inadequately and patchily. Our departure from the Convention would be heaven sent to others with very different values from our own.
English politicians – and it is largely English politicians for the Scots and Welsh seem to feel differently – pontificate about the threat of the European Court to the sovereignty of Parliament. Jack Straw, for one, has got het up over a requirement to give votes to some categories of prisoners. It is time to get a grip and put this row into perspective. Were I a prison governor, I would weep for joy at a prisoner who actually wanted to vote. For God’s sake, this is minor issue. Let us give it the value that it merits. Give some prisoners the vote and move on.
Mrs May is exercised because she cannot deport as many people that she would like either because they have family here or they would face ill-treatment wherever they were sent. Well, let’s remember our John Donne; ‘no man is an island entire upon himself’. We, the Labour party, are an international party. We accept that you can no longer credibly argue for socialism in one nation but you can advance human rights in all. A future Labour government – whatever the murky precedent of earlier years – would not condone torture by other states, either directly or indirectly. As to the right to family life and national security, the Convention balances that in a satisfactory way. Even Mrs May agrees that. Let us see legislation, passing through the whole Parliamentary process, that sets out how we wish democratically to balance these two rights. The last Labour government ensured in the Human Rights Act that full legislation of this kind will bind the UK judiciary. Well, instead of harrumphing about immigration rules, let us pass proper legislation and then argue with Strasbourg or, if that fails, the Council of Europe.
It is time, colleagues, for Labour to advance the UK’s interest within the two Europes – that of the Union and the Council. We have no future outside either. Our values and our economy will be thrown to the winds as a leaf in an autumn gale. We are a compassionate, engaged, democratic party. We are a compassionate, engaged, democratic country. It is time to stand up for our beliefs.
