Brexit: Human Rights

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, it has been an absolute privilege to listen to this important debate instigated by my noble friend Lord Cashman and to listen to so many eminent speakers from all sides of this House. It is wonderful that we have marked Human Rights Day in this way, and I agree that we should do so every year as one small contribution to our commitment to human rights in this House. I am also delighted that more than half the speakers in this all too short debate have been women. Women’s rights are human rights, as I am sure we will discuss much more next year as we mark 100 years of the Representation of the People Act. That was achieved through struggle, including very serious struggle and trips to prison, force feeding, torture and so on—not just gradualism but very hard won rights indeed.

Last week, I had the pleasure of accompanying the Leader of the Opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, to Geneva, to hear him address the UN there. In that address, he outlined his plans for a new approach to foreign policy based on solidarity, international co-operation and human rights. He said clearly:

“The survival of our common humanity requires nothing less”.


This approach will place human rights at the centre of Labour policy, at home as well as globally, and it also categorises our Brexit position. Labour has been consistent in calling for retaining workers’ rights protections, environmental and animal welfare standards, and on the incorporation of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights into British law. Under a Labour Government, that is the vision for a post-Brexit Britain, based on our values of co-operation and internationalism.

In stark contrast we heard the Prime Minister’s conference speech in September, in which she laid out her party’s philosophy and vision for a post-Brexit Britain, beginning with the now infamous quote, “If you believe you’re a citizen of the world, you’re a citizen of nowhere. You don’t understand what the very word ‘citizenship’ means”. That negative view of internationalism speaks to a creeping xenophobia that was not sated by the EU referendum result and continues, I am afraid, to colour too much thinking from the party opposite on Brexit negotiations. I therefore ask noble Lords on all sides of this House to look at the use by the Government of the rights of EU nationals resident here as a bargaining chip in the talks, leaving them in limbo for the last 18 months. I agree with my noble friend Lady Whitaker that the Roma people are perhaps one of the most demonised minorities in Europe, and we should give particular care to their treatment in the months and years ahead.

I am afraid that Mrs May and her Government have consistently demonstrated a lack of support for European human rights law—the same laws, as my noble friend Lady Kennedy said, that we Britons were so instrumental in creating and which set the historic status of the UK as a global leader on equality and human rights on the world stage. That status is now in grave peril.

More worrying still is the lack of will and a culture of disregard for the importance of human rights and sometimes even for the rule of law. I talk in particular about the recent statement made by the Defence Secretary that terrorists should be “eliminated”, with no reference to due process, and of course refer also to other Ministers’ intention, repeated over many years, to scrap the Human Rights Act in favour—no question—of a lesser instrument that would protect people differentially, not least on grounds of nationality or other badges of worthiness.

More worrying still, the Government are now tasked with the complex negotiations for the UK’s exit from the European Union, and have given us no reason to believe that they have a true commitment to human rights. In spite of repeated assurances that the withdrawal Bill will maintain the status quo, various rights and protections have been explicitly excluded, in particular the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, which the Government maintain creates no new rights. That is simply not the case; if it were, the Brexit Secretary, Mr Davis, would not have needed to rely on it in his own ultimately successful challenge to the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act.

It is simple: losing the charter means losing rights. I agree with others who said that, in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. The charter created new rights; for example, Article 8 on data protection, Article 13 on academic freedom, Article 24 on the rights of the child, Article 26 on disabled people’s rights, Article 21 on sex discrimination, and so on. The Equality and Human Rights Commission, the British Institute of Human Rights and the Law Society and so many other vital civil society stakeholders have expressed concerns about the loss of the charter. Moreover, the Human Rights Act is still in jeopardy, as is, potentially, our continued support and signatory status to the European Convention on Human Rights itself. We heard from my noble friend Lord Cashman and the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, about our poor response to the UN Human Rights Council’s periodic review of human rights compliance in this country.

Fundamentally, it is a question of what kind of Britain we want to build post Brexit. Some want a race to the bottom and we want a race to the top. We want to champion the rule of law and progressive values and not allow a bargain-basement Britain, where you pay no tax and low wages and have no standards for employment protection, human rights, workers’ and disabled people’s rights, environmental rights, equalities and ethical business. We want to match European and international standards. No, we do not want to match them—that is not enough. We want to raise them.