Guido has highlighted Lord Hermer’s influence over government decision-making from the start. Now, documents seen by The Telegraph reveal just how far that control extends. Hermer has personally rewritten official guidance originally issued by former Attorney General Suella Braverman. Effectively handing himself a veto over policies and boosting powers of the lawyer class in Whitehall…
Lawyers are told to assume every ministerial decision could face legal challenge. A new “snitch clause” forces civil servants to report directly to Hermer if they suspect ministers might be about to act unlawfully. He also instructs lawyers and civil servants to treat international law on the same footing as national law:
“The rule of law requires compliance by the state with its obligations in international law as in national law, even though they operate on different planes.”
It now includes 23 references to international law. Hermer has also blocked the Government from using Parliament to override international agreements, effectively shutting down any route around the ECHR. Ministers are bound regardless of manifesto promises or parliamentary will…
Across government, patience is wearing thin. As Guido reported, senior figures – including McFadden, Thomas-Symonds and Mahmood – are fuming over Hermer’s habit of strangling policy with sweeping, maximalist legal advice. How much longer can Starmer protect Blocker Hermer?
Lucy Powell told Sky News that the Ed Miliband-Russell Brand interview happened in part because the ‘social media age’ had not begun by 2015:
“Look, I mean, he approached the Labour Party, he approached the campaign team, and we’re in very different times now. We weren’t in the social media age at the time – where you could maybe search things up and see allegations about somebody at the time. and as I say, if there was any suggestion at all, we were dealing with someone who was a known sexual predator at the time, then, of course, you know, no one would have done that. But as I say, he was a well known public figure. Lots of people from Hollywood to the BBC to many others gave this person a very, very powerful platform. And we didn’t know at the time, unfortunately. It was a different era.”