A deportation flight intended to take murderers, rapists and paedophiles back to Jamaica set off in the middle of the night with only 13 of its planned 50 passengers after last-minute legal challenges saw several removed from the plane over claims they had been victims of “modern slavery”. Left-wing lawyers forced the government’s hand to keep on UK soil. Even with the legal victory, hundreds of hard-left activists and “black public figures” are furious that the flight deported anyone at all, despite the remaining 13 criminals having combined sentences of more than 100 years for murder, manslaughter, grooming, burglary and robbery.
Priti Patel was rightly furious at the continuing interference of campaigning lawyers, and accused Labour MPs of “re-traumatising” victims of rape and other evil crimes. 70 MPs had signed a letter organised by Clive Lewis calling for the flight to be delayed, names included the usual loony left; Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, Diane Abbott, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Kate Osamor, Claudia Webbe and Dawn Butler. The letter claimed:
“Deportations epitomise the government’s continued ‘Hostile Environment’ agenda. Not only is this agenda unjust, but also the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has now found that the Home Office broke the law with its series of hostile environment policies and inhumane treatment of the Windrush generation.”
It is beyond disgusting that these Labour MPs and hard-left celebrities dare conflate the mistreatment of the Windrush generation to the frankly overly-humane treatment of this group of low-lifes.
The criticism from the likes of Diane Abbott is particularly laughable. As immigration minister Chris Philp pointed out in the Commons this week after she called the mass-deportation “cruel and potentially dangerous”, the law legally requiring the government to ship this evil lot back to where they came from was implemented in 2007 under a Labour government – a law for which Diane Abbott voted.
Labour complain about a hostile environment towards thieves, murderers, rapists and paedophiles – it clearly isn’t hostile enough and their former voters in the Red Wall will drain away even further if identity politics continues to drive them down this route…
Former president of the Supreme Court Lady Hale has made headlines this weekend after telling Times Radio that any judge has to uphold the law, whether domestic or international. Hacks like Cathy Newman claimed she’d heaped pressure on the Justice Secretary and the Attorney General…
Unfortunately for those hoping to continue the now-settled row over the Internal Market Bill, Guido’s has discovered some interesting contradictory cases from Baroness Hale’s past, which show her commitment to adhering international law hasn’t always been quite so clear cut:
- In 2015, Hale agreed with Lord Mance that “The United Kingdom takes a dualist approach to international law”, in other words, if international law is not incorporated into UK law by parliament, ministers (a) can ignore it but (b) they can follow it if they want to.
- In 2012, Lady Hale said she preferred to apply the intention of the UK Parliament over the relevant international EU law because the liberty of the subject (Assange) was involved
- In 2014, Hale used a speech to say that recent cases focusing on UK constitutional rights and those on the relationship between EU law and our constitutional order have grown “awareness of the extent to which the UK’s constitutional principles should be at the forefront of the court’s analysis.”
Some may ask why Lady Hale’s opinions changed in this case involving Boris, though Guido readers will remember her previous failures to avoid being overtly political…
The Black Lives Matter paramilitary-style march in Brixton has had a lot of coverage, including videos of protestors yelling at police and calling them “terrorists”. Only three arrests were made despite the widespread “threatening, abusive or insulting” behaviour being clear public order offences…
That tiny arrest number is even more surprising when taking into account photos of dozens of men wearing matching para-military outfits with face coverings and branded stab vests reading “FF Force” (Forever Family).
In 1936, a new public order act was introduced to counter the rise of Oswald Mosley’s fascist Black Shirts, banning political uniforms:
Prohibition of uniforms in connection with political objects.
(1) Subject as hereinafter provided, any person who in any public place or at any public meeting wears uniform signifying his association with any political organisation or with the promotion of any political object shall be guilty of an offence
We have seen the police being defied by violent criminal gangs on the streets, now they are being defied by an organised militia, it does not take much imagination to see them becoming armed with weapons, improvised or otherwise. Britain does not tolerate private armies for political forces for very good reasons – a Ministry of Justice source told Guido he could see no reason why the “FF Force” uniforms didn’t contravene the Act. Under the Public Order Act the decision to arrest or not arrest is devolved to the officer in charge of policing the operation, in this case Deputy Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor. Why was the law not enforced in this case – was DAC Taylor leant on from above for political reasons?
Katie Hopkins is this afternoon whacked with a bill for £24,000 in damages and at least £107,000 in costs for two tweets to food blogger Jack Monroe. Hopkins “confused” Monroe with Laurie Penny, according to The Guardian, to whom she had meant to tweet about vandalism of a war memorial during an anti-austerity protest (Penny had said she “didn’t have a problem” with the action). Monroe gave Hopkins the chance to apologise for erroneously directing tweets to her: “public apology + £5K to migrant rescue and I won’t sue.” But the former Apprentice contestant and Mail columnist instead doubled down and called Monroe “social anthrax”. Katie Hopkins doesn’t apologise…
A weary Mr Justice Warby used his judgement to slap down both parties in turn:
“The case could easily have been resolved at an early stage. There was an open offer to settle for £5,000. It was a reasonable offer… The costs would have been a fraction of those which I am sure these parties have incurred in the event… The second point is that there have been difficulties over disclosure especially on the claimant’s side… Ms Monroe’s Twitter records were extensively deleted…”
The real winners here are the lawyers…
Disgraced lawyer Phil Shiner whipped-up vexatious claims against British soldiers in Iraq. Today his career is over. The Law Society Gazette reports:
“The tribunal found five counts of dishonesty proved against him following a two-day hearing earlier this week. He is almost certain to be struck off the roll.”
Justice…
UPDATE: Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has called on Shiner to apologise. He said:
“Justice has finally been served after we took the unprecedented step of submitting evidence on his abuse of our legal system. Phil Shiner made soldiers’ lives a misery by pursuing false claims of torture and murder – now he should apologise. We will study any implications for outstanding legal claims closely.”
