The judgment of the Supreme Court on the illegality of deportation of asylum seekers to Rwanda was given massive publicity in connection with the sacking of Suella Braverman, but in fact it is a decision of much wider significance. It also has great relevance to the coming High Court hearing on Julian Assange, both in terms of the arguments, some of which are common to both cases, and the stance of the judges, some of whom are also common to both cases.
Let me start with the point on which the Supreme Court decision turned – whether or not the court should independently determine whether Rwanda is a safe country, or whether the Home Secretary is entitled to make that decision without possibility of judicial interference, provided correct procedures are followed.
The original Divisional Court determination, by Justices Swift and Lewis, was that the Home Secretary’s decision was “irrebuttable”: that the Executive was best placed to make the decision and there was no room for interference by the courts. This view was overturned by a majority of the Appeal Court, although there in a minority judgment Lord Chief Justice of England Burnett supported the original decision on rather incoherent grounds that this wasn’t the question at issue.
The Supreme Court has said, unanimously, that judges have a positive duty to determine whether a country is safe for deportation, rather than simply take the word of ministers for it. This is a very strong piece of judicial activism.
The correct test, derived from Soering, requires the
court to decide for itself whether there are substantial grounds for believing that the
removal of asylum seekers to Rwanda would expose them to a real risk of ill treatment,
as a consequence of refoulement to another country. The assessment is one which must
be made by the court. The majority of the Court of Appeal considered that the
Divisional Court had mistakenly dealt with the issue on the basis that the court’s role
was confined to deciding whether the Secretary of State had been entitled to form the
view that there was no such risk…
After reviewing the evidence, the court judged that Rwanda’s general human rights record, its past treatment of refugees and the state of its asylum system make it an unsafe country for deportation. It does not become a safe country either because Pritti Patel and Suella Braverman say so, or – and this is crucial for the Assange case – because its government makes promises about future behaviour.
This is a crucial passage with obvious relevance to the Assange case which I shall go on to explain:
46. The Secretary of State relies on the assurances provided by the Rwandan
government in the MEDP as meeting any concerns arising from the evidence about the
past and present operation of the Rwandan asylum system. In essence, the Secretary of
State submits that, notwithstanding any problems that there may have been in the past or
that may remain at present, the MEDP sets out arrangements for the future which
provide adequate safeguards against refoulement, and the Rwandan government can be
relied on to fulfil its undertaking to process the claims in accordance with those
arrangements…
As authority for its view that it is for the court to decide on the safety of the deportee, they quote with approval the European Court of Human Rights decision in the Othman case:
“There is an obligation to examine whether assurances
provide, in their practical application, a sufficient guarantee
that the applicant will be protected against the risk of ill-
treatment. The weight to be given to assurances from the
receiving state depends, in each case, on the circumstances
prevailing at the material time.”
This is interesting because the decision in the Othman case forms part of the legal arguments for Julian’s appeal.
There is a massive academic literature, right across the world, on the weight to be given (or not) to diplomatic assurances of good treatment by the receiving government, in extradition or deportation cases. The issue has generated countless PhDs and employed the time of numerous officials of governments, international institutions and NGO’s. This is just from the first page of a Google search on the issue:
Governments like the UK which wish to deport people are keen to argue that deportation to assorted dictatorial hellholes is fine, if the torturing dictatorship sends a Diplomatic Note promising not to torture or persecute (or send to torture and persecution). International institutions and judges tend to argue that facts on the ground are worth more than pieces of paper. In practice, the UK’s system of deportations relies heavily on “diplomatic assurances”.
The UK government gets away with this by carefully not monitoring what happens to the deportee at the other end. In the only Uzbek case in which my intervention ever failed to prevent a deportation, the couple concerned simply vanished on arrival back in Tashkent. The position of the FCDO is that, as they were Uzbek nationals, the British government had no responsibility to monitor what happened to them in their home country, after deportation from the UK.
In the present Rwanda case, the Supreme Court notes that the UK government plans to operate the Rwanda policy through the Migration and Economic Development Partnership (MEDP) which in practice consists of a Memorandum of Understanding and two diplomatic notes from the government of Rwanda entitled “the asylum process of transferred individuals” and “the reception and accommodation of transferred individuals”.
These are simply “Diplomatic assurances” in their classic form, and the Supreme Court treats them as such.
The Home Secretary’s appeal against the Appeal Court judgment explicitly argued that the court should defer to the executive’s judgment of the value of these assurances, which the Supreme Court summarises as the Home Secretary criticising the Appeal Court for:
giving
insufficient weight to HM Government’s assessment of the likelihood of the
government of Rwanda abiding by its assurances
The Supreme Court rejects the notion that diplomatic assurances provided to the executive outweigh an assessment by the court itself of the true situation. The Supreme Court states:
The government’s assessment of whether there is such a risk is an important
element of that evidence, but the court is bound to consider the question in the light of
the evidence as a whole and to reach its own conclusion.
This is a definitive position, and a very strong one, in the debate about the role of diplomatic assurances in deportation proceedings.
The reason this is so vital to the Assange case, is that the court of first instance decided against Assange’s extradition, due to the combination of his health and the appalling maximum security conditions to which he would be subjected in the United States. On Appeal by the government of the USA, Lord Chief Justice Burnett rejected this argument, primarily on the basis of diplomatic assurances as to Assange’s treatment, received in Diplomatic Notes submitted at the appeal stage.
Because they were not submitted to the original hearing but only at Appeal, Assange’s team had no opportunity to question these diplomatic assurances or cross-examine on their value. Lord Chief Justice Burnett rejected this as having any weight, on the grounds that it was for the executive to decide the value of diplomatic assurances.
Note this: Lord Chief Justice Burnett was also the dissenting judge who found for the government at appeal in the Rwanda case, where again he argued that the diplomatic assurances from the Rwanda government should simply be accepted on the executive’s evaluation. That is the classic executive position in the whole diplomatic assurances debate – and the Supreme Court has just unanimously and fizzingly rejected Burnett’s argument.
If it is for the court and not the executive to investigate and determine the value of diplomatic assurances in the Rwanda case, then it must also be for the court to examine and determine the value of diplomatic assurances in the Assange case. At no point in the Assange process has any court undertaken this duty, or the defence been offered any opportunity to challenge the veracity of the diplomatic assurances.
That must now play a crucial role in consideration of the Assange case going forward.
It is Burnett who granted the US appeal against the refusal to extradite Assange. As detailed in past articles, Burnett is the best friend and former college flatmate of Tory Minister Alan Duncan, who called Julian “a worm” in parliament and who was in direct charge of the operation to remove Julian from the Ecuadorean Embassy.
The other judge whose arguments were resoundingly rejected by the Supreme Court is Jonathan Swift, who found for the Home Secretary at first instance in the Rwanda case. Swift is also the judge who dismissed Assange’s 150-page appeal in three double-spaced pages and attempted to limit any future hearing to half an hour. Again as previously explained here, Swift is a former barrister for the security services, which he said were his favourite clients.
Swift’s judgments in both the Assange and Rwanda cases smack of the alt-right in their contemptuous dismissal of argument and contrary evidence. The Supreme Court, however, is crushing about Swift’s simple assertion in the Divisional Court that the United Nations Commission for Human Rights is not a body whose views should be given particular weight. The Supreme Court tramples all over Swift’s trite approach, in hobnailed boots, for a significant period of time:
The Divisional Court was dismissive of this evidence, and did not attempt to
engage with it. It stated at para 71 that the evidence of UNHCR “carries no special
weight”…
64. …The Divisional Court’s view that the evidence of UNHCR carried no special
weight was a further error. Of course, the weight to be attached to evidence is always a
matter for the court, and will depend on the circumstances. However, a number of
factors combined in the present case to render the evidence of UNHCR of particular
significance.65. The first relevant factor is the status and role of UNHCR. It is entrusted by the
United Nations General Assembly with supervision of the interpretation and application
of the Refugee Convention: see the Statute of the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees, annexed to UN General Assembly Resolution 428(V), 14
December 1950. Under article 35 of the Refugee Convention, states parties undertake to
co-operate with UNHCR in the exercise of its functions, and to facilitate its duty of
supervising the application of the provisions of the Convention. Reflecting those
circumstances, it is well established that UNHCR’s guidance concerning the
interpretation and application of the Refugee Convention “should be accorded
considerable weight”: Al-Sirri v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012]
UKSC 54; [2013] 1 AC 745, para 36. In IA (Iran) v Secretary of State for the Home
Department [2014] UKSC 6; [2014] 1 WLR 384, para 44, this court stated that “the
accumulated and unrivalled expertise of this organisation, its experience in working
with governments throughout the world, the development, promotion and enforcement
of procedures of high standard and consistent decision-making in the field of refugee
status determinations must invest its decisions with considerable authority”.66. The second factor, mentioned in that dictum, is UNHCR’s expertise and
experience. That factor was also emphasised by this court in R (EM (Eritrea)) v
Secretary of State for the Home Department [2014] UKSC 12; [2014] AC 1321, when
considering the approach which should be adopted to evidence provided by UNHCR in
relation to the risks involved in removing asylum seekers to another country. Lord Kerr
of Tonaghmore, with whose judgment the other members of the court agreed, referred
(para 72) to “the unique and unrivalled expertise of UNHCR in the field of asylum and
refugee law”, and expressed agreement with the observations of Sir Stephen Sedley in
the court below [2013] 1 WLR 576, para 41, which he quoted at para 71:
“It seems to us that there was a reason for [the European
Court in MSS v Belgium and Greece] according the UNHCR a
special status in this context. The finding of facts by a court of
law on the scale involved here is necessarily a problematical
exercise, prone to influence by accidental factors such as the
date of a report, or its sources, or the quality of its authorship,
and conducted in a single intensive session. The High
Commissioner for Refugees, by contrast, is today the holder
of an internationally respected office with an expert staff
(numbering 7,190 in 120 different states, according to its
website), able to assemble and monitor information from year
to year and to apply to it standards of knowledge and
judgment which are ordinarily beyond the reach of a court. In
doing this, and in reaching his conclusions, he has the
authority of the General Assembly of the United Nations, by
whom he is appointed and to whom he reports. It is
intelligible in this situation that a supranational court should
pay special regard both to the facts which the High
Commissioner reports and to the value judgments he arrives at
within his remit.”67. As was mentioned in that passage, considerable weight is given to the evidence
of UNHCR by the European Court. In MSS v Belgium and Greece, for example, the
court attached “critical importance” (para 349) to UNHCR’s concerns about the
treatment of asylum seekers in Greece. In Ilias v Hungary, UNHCR’s reports were
described as “authoritative” (para 141, quoted at para 45 above). For the reasons we
have explained, it is unsurprising that that should be so; and it is a factor which is
relevant to the approach of domestic courts when considering asylum questions under
the ECHR.68. UNHCR’s evidence will naturally be of greatest weight when it relates to matters
within its particular remit or where it has special expertise in the subject matter. Its
evidence in the present case concerns matters falling within its remit and about which it
has undoubted expertise. As the Lord Chief Justice observed in the present case,
UNHCR “has unrivalled practical experience of the working of the asylum system in
Rwanda through long years of engagement” (para 467). It has been operating
permanently in Rwanda since 1993, and had 332 staff there at the time of its evidence in
these proceedings. Its role in Rwanda includes assisting asylum seekers and refugees,
funding and training non-governmental organisations working with the Rwandan
asylum system, dealing with officials responsible for asylum decision-making, and
engaging with the relevant department of the Rwandan government over the
management of refugee camps. Although UNHCR has no official role in Rwanda’s
asylum system, the Rwandan authorities have, albeit intermittently, sent it copies of
asylum decisions, and UNHCR receives information from asylum-seekers and NGOs,
and through communications with relevant officials. UNHCR is therefore able to collate
data and gain insight into the practical realities of Rwanda’s asylum system. Its
experience was recognised by Home Office officials. They reported that the Rwandan
government depended heavily on UNHCR and other non-governmental organisations
for delivering its asylum and refugee processes, and that UNHCR had undoubted
expertise and experience of managing part of the refugee process, as well as knowledge
of the Rwandan system more generally.69. As the Lord Chief Justice noted at para 467, UNHCR can be said to have an
institutional interest in the outcome of these proceedings, since it has adopted the
position (set out in its Guidance Note on bilateral and/or multilateral arrangements of
asylum-seekers) that asylum seekers and refugees should ordinarily be processed in the
territory of the state where they arrive or which otherwise has jurisdiction over them.
The fact that UNHCR has adopted that position is a factor to be taken into account when
assessing its evidence. However, its evidence and submissions were presented with
moderation, and did not appear to reflect a partisan assessment. It has also to be borne in
mind that, as a responsible United Nations agency accountable to the General
Assembly, UNHCR will not lightly make statements critical of any state in which it
operates.70. Drawing these threads together, it is apparent from the factors which we have
mentioned and the authorities which we have cited that particular importance should
have been attached to the evidence of UNHCR in the present case. That is not to say
that its evidence should necessarily be decisive or pre-eminent. In the circumstances of
the present case, however, its evidence on significant matters of fact is essentially
uncontradicted by any cogent evidence to the contrary, as the Court of Appeal explained
(eg at para 136). It should not have been treated as dismissively as it was by the
Divisional Court.
I think it is fair to say that the Supreme Court’s extensive comments on Swift’s one-sentence dismissal of the evidence of the United Nations, is not incompatible with the view that the Supreme Court has twigged Swift for a glib little wanker. I wonder whether they would take the same view over Swift’s equally glib and dismissive approach to Assange’s entire appeal?
A further hot legal point which has relevance for the Assange case relates to the extent to which the UK is bound by international law.
I have attended a number of meetings at the UN in Geneva this last fortnight, including country reviews of the human rights records of a number of nations. These NGO and expert meetings are held under Chatham House rules, so I am not able to tell you precise details. But I saw developing nations specifically criticised for failures of judicial decisions to take into account the obligations in international law of the state to follow treaties they have ratified.
Extraordinarily, the UK openly takes the view that no international law, including treaties it has signed, is ever legally binding on the UK unless it has been explicitly incorporated in UK domestic legislation. The UK does not consider itself bound by treaties it has ratified.
This is absolutely crucial in the Assange case, where the US/UK Extradition Treaty of 2003, under which the extradition is taking place, specifically forbids political extradition. The courts have accepted the argument that this is irrelevant as the treaty has no legal force, this text not having been incorporated in any UK domestic legislation.
The Supreme Court judgment on Rwanda, however, appears to take the UK’s obligations in international law very seriously. The Supreme Court does not appear to be treating the UK’s international treaty obligations as governing the conduct of the UK Government, only insofar as they are incorporated in domestic law. After talking about the prohibition of refoulement under the Refugee Convention, the Supreme Court states:
As we shall explain, refoulement is also prohibited
under a number of other international conventions which the United Kingdom has
ratified. There are also several Acts of Parliament which protect refugees against
refoulement.
It is very difficult to read that in a way that makes the applicability of the international treaties valid only insofar as they have been incorporated in the Acts of Parliament. The second use of the word “also” is here a specific indicator that the international conventions are sufficient; the Acts of Parliament are reinforcement, not necessary condition.
That perhaps is not immediately apparent. Let me show you without the second “also”:
As we shall explain, refoulement is also prohibited
under a number of other international conventions which the United Kingdom has
ratified. There are several Acts of Parliament which protect refugees against
refoulement.
In that formulation it is possible to argue that the Acts of Parliament are necessary to give effect in law to the international conventions, even though that is not stated. But insert the second “also”:
As we shall explain, refoulement is also prohibited
under a number of other international conventions which the United Kingdom has
ratified. There are also several Acts of Parliament which protect refugees against
refoulement.
The “also” makes it impossible to argue that the international conventions have no weight without the Acts of Parliament. Do you see it now?
The Supreme Court then does go on to discuss the several areas of UK domestic law that do establish the principle of non-refoulement, but I thought the initial approach was very interesting. There is an unresolved tension over the status of international law inside the UK, and the Supreme Court rather leaves it floating. Should the Assange case reach the Supreme Court, it does not appear to me impossible they may take a different view on the applicability of the “no political extradition” clause of the Treaty under which the extradition is taking place.
I am of course delighted about the spoke in the wheel of the appalling Rwanda deportation project. Anyone paying attention to social media is bound to have noticed the correlation between support for the Rwanda proposal and support for Israel’s genocidal actions. I suppose it is all a part of a general racism and Islamophobia.
One further question left hanging by the Supreme Court is the “Flat Earth” question. This is likely to arise fairly soon, if the Tories carry through their promise to specifically legislate for the legality of deportation of asylum seekers to Rwanda.
The question is this.
The Supreme Court has ruled it did not have to accept the Patel/Braverman assessment of the safety of Rwanda, but had the duty to make its own determination. But if parliament were to pass a law stating that Rwanda is safe, rather than that the Secretary of State can designate it safe, would the court still have the right to exercise its own judgment in face of what would be a strange but extant statute ?
If Parliament passed a law stating that the Earth is flat, would that mean that in UK law the Earth is flat, or could judges make their own assessment? How do you square the answer to that question with the ruling doctrine of the sovereignty of the King in Parliament?
We may be going to find out, if the Tories are determined to push ahead with legislation on the safety of Rwanda, as they propose. We find ourselves asking ludicrous questions with a straight face, but that is where crazed Tory rule has taken us.
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– hoist by their own petard.
I wonder how quickly they’ll swap petard and hope nobody notices.
Unfortunately for this class of monsters in human form, there is little legal threat of consequences.
Really good and informative analysis. Thanks, Craig. We can but hope some kind or sanity prevails with the judiciary over Julian’s case, maybe with a combined realisation in Washington that the US has nothing to gain from it, and more to lose in terms of its reputation. It does highlight how dependent on the prejudices of a particular judge we are for justice.
Is there a direct route to the Supreme Court at this stage in Julian Assange’s legal fight? Does the appeal against Swift’s rejection of the 150 page appeal have to be itself rejected by Swift before that can be taken to the Supreme Court? Or can the government then bundle Julian onto a plane for the USA at that time (the infamous Day X)? Because for the first time in the long unholy masquerade of tyranny this seems to be a genuine development, and one that the government will want to pre-empt with a fait accompli if possible.
I’m sorry to say that if the USA wants Assange they’ll get him, because we live in a corrupt world where people in high places can be bribed to bend or break the law to achieve whatever the agenda of the day is, the lack of a ceasefire in Gaza is a prime example of this at work.
I hear that James Cleverly is working on a way around the supreme court ruling.
I would add “extorted” and “blackmailed” to the list of adjectives. Although I increasingly feel there is a complete lack of empathy and compassion in these possibly evil people.
….if only, if only this positively helps Assange! praying for him and his trusted friends and loved ones.
I seem to recall that there was once a legislature that ruled that π was exactly 3.
A question I would ask, is even if Craig’s analysis is correct and the UK proceedings continue and the USA’s application for Julian Assange’s extradition is delayed as a result, is it more likely that Julian would be in a position apply for Court bail while the proceedings are ongoing and thereby regain some liberty during these protracted proceedings ? Given the gears are already spinning in place for the US 2024 presidential elections and the traction that Julian Assange’s case has for the younger voters who are currently outraged by the crimes against the Palestinian is kicking this in to the long grass such a bad thing for the US administration ?
“[I]s kicking this in to the long grass such a bad thing for the US administration?”
They may yet find it in their vestigial hearts to give Assange some plea bargain on humanitarian grounds as a palliative under immense public pressure, letting him live out his days under house arrest in Australia under intensive surveillance air-gapped from any internet access or some such thing. Of course, activists would be well-advised to keep their eyes on the press freedom prize, and demand much more than that.
Sadly, though, if the MICIMATT-influenced US Justice Department and the UK Court System do what civil libertarians the world over want them to do for Assange, they will just go looking for some other international journalist or publisher to prosecute in a “kangaroo court” in order to create a novel legal precedent capable of dangerously diminishing the already flagging First Amendment both domestically and extraterritorially (while giving other states around the globe the license they lust after to prosecute their own perceived dissidents and malcontents). As things stand, they have already invested so much in using Assange’s case for that purpose that they might as well rationalize seeing it through to their selectively miserly selves with the sunk-cost fallacy – not that (fiat) money is truly any object to them, as they see it.
From the POV of Assange’s persecutors, since they have already gone to the trouble of hounding Assange to the ends of the earth, while also perpetuating “proxy conflicts” from Israel-Gaza to Ukraine, they might as well not concede anything to those “younger voters” and break them in early, making them despair at the supposed immutability of human nature in general and the intractability of the dystopian system in particular. From their perspective, they can thereby hopefully hasten the process of disaffecting a new generation of “New Left” hippies into Reagan Democrats that will “Kick the Vietnam (or Afghanistan and Iraq) Syndrome,” or Kellogg-Briand outlawry proponents and “New Deal” idealists into the “Greatest Generation,” or would-be mothers who “Didn’t Raise Their Boy to Be a Soldier” into people who would proudly send their sons and daughters “Over There” (or “Over Here” in a facility piloting a remote-controlled drone to deliver a nuclear bunker-buster to its intended target).
Good report. Not to distract from its thrust, I believe we are being played.
The reality is that the whole ‘ship ’em out to Rwanda’ is a giant distraction, smoke and mirrors, to give the illusion that the government is ‘doing something ‘ to please the right wing before the election. Plucky little Richy, fighting those evil Europeans to save our cuntry.
Example: If we have, say, 300,000 illegals turning up every year and we want to send them to Rwanda by plane. Then an A300 jet, for example can hold around 250 passengers. Each plane would require, say, 50 support staff (guards, medical, etc), so 200 deportees per flight, maximum. That would imply 1,500 flights or four every day of the year.
It ain’t going to happen is it ?
This is cynical electioneering, pretending to do something whilst doing FA. pure chaff.
Don’t believe the tory hype, when the illegals get here they are here for keeps.
There’s only 30-40,000 people a year landing on these fair shores by small boats, Stevie – whereas another 50,000 or so asylum seekers came by other means (which no one seems particularly bothered about). Compare these numbers to the circa 800,000 immigrants that arrived here completely legally last year. As you say, the getting tough on the small boats stuff is just political chaff.
Lapsed Agnostic – does you nom de plume refer to a re-born belief, or a recovered state of knowingness (presumably after a period of unknowingness)?
Good points about numbers, and Stevie Boy’s point about logistics seems rather sensible but begs the question – has any Suella de ville era civil servant done the sums?
But we have to think about the political optics. How have the Tory right-wing managed to whip the issue into a such a frenzy that the finest legal minds are bamboozled? The MSM seem determined to flog this issue to the highest level of hysteria. Hotels in the South are housing boat arrivals to the tune of ?? millions per day (presumably good business for the owners), and MP’s are prone to becoming apoplectic and risk a seizure about the boat operators running circles round the police and coastguard.
Civilisation appears to be under threat. The barge moored near Portland is more or less numerically speaking a non-event despite the huge brouhaha surrounding it and its three residents. Political chaff it may be but the reactions are disproportionate (it would appear). Or is it a case of ‘apres moi, le deluge’ or putting another way – if we don’t stick our finger in the dyke now, the whole edifice of English civilisation will be washed away by the tsunami of working age economic immigrants. I say English (despite the risk of an inadvertent oxymoron) because not much is heard in Scotland and Wales. Why don’t we Scots fear an infiltration of brown folk when we are already infiltrated by white carpet-baggers setting up organic food outlets in Clachnacuddin by the sea? Could it be something to do with the southern-weighted uneven distribution of wealth and inverse distribution of poverty? Would Tory right-wingers be so exercised if Scotland was at one side of La Manche?
Thanks for your reply Douglas. My nom de plume originates from something I read in the Graun around 25 years ago, where one of their intrepid foreign correspondents was trying to explain his religion to a group of Bible Belters. I wouldn’t read too much into it.
The Tories’ Stop the Boats/Rwanda policy is largely aimed at trying to recapture votes lost to Reform UK (currently at 8-10% in the polls), which might possibly prevent a Labour majority at the next election. It’s designed to distract from the record numbers of legal immigrants (required for continued economic growth in the absence of productivity gains) coming to the UK – mainly into England, which has seen its population increase by 20% these past 25 years (not including the illegals) focussed on the South, compared to an 8% increase in Scotland. Much of the white flight into Scotland can be explained by people wanting to move from high-immigration areas in the South. It would have been close, but no NewLabour lifting of immigration restrictions in 1997 might well have led to a Yes vote in the IndyRef in 2014.
P.S. Not sure that organic food outlets would do much business in Merkinch. Isn’t it one of the most deprived areas in the Highlands?
I have abbreviated you to Lapsag – sort of true to its origins but with an hint of scepticism.
Reform party – being in the inner north this political entity does not figure in my political peregrinations. I had no idea they were at 10% (assuming that is confined to the borderlands of the civilised world).
I have two sisters in Inversneck but they don’t ever mention Merkinch (surprised you have even heard of it – indeed one of the troubled areas of an otherwise fairly genteel environment. The demography of Merkinch is interesting – it reminds me of a native reservation without the civilising effect of the gambling industry that has become the MO of the Native Americans. The white flighters have snaked and snarked their way up the west coast to places favoured by their ain folk (English tourists) with a curious spiritual retreat in Findhorn on the Moray coast. Latest news is that the rather admirable Universal Hall has burnt down.
So Reform is presumably dividing the Tory vote into extreme xenophobes and casual ‘devil may care’ xenophobes, thus (I would assume) opening up opportunities for Lib Dems. One of my political intuitions is that Starmer’s prevarications re a ceasefire and his equivocation about the issue of bombing defenceless, starving, dehydrated civilians, children and hospital patients (good idea in certain cases?) has queered his pitch in Scotland and his enthusiasm to appear fully on board the US foreign policy won’t wash in awkward Scotland. The apparent certainty of a Labour victory next year looks like the worst of all possible worlds – a thin thread of a majority, a booby trapped economy, and defunct public care/services for Rachel the Plagiarist to contemplate.
My main interest is Scotland and independence, and what this will mean for Scotland. I am noticing an inordinate quantity of political literature coming through the letterbox with the noticeable absence of SNP, so the temperature is rising. After the Mathieson frenzy, it looks as if the choice is: ‘nice but dim’ SNP; Not so dim, not so nice Alba; the Queerzyqueasy Greens; the nasty Party; or Slab-nasty (the mirror isomer of Tory). But I await ‘events, dear boy, events’.
Thanks for your reply Douglas. According to Wiki, in 2020, Merkinch was the 8th most deprived area in Scotland, so could be the most deprived outside the Central Belt. I remember hearing somewhere that the Findhorn area has the fewest children per capita in the UK – not sure if it’s true.
I’m also not sure that Starmzy’s stance on the Israel-Gaza situation has affected Labour’s vote too much in Scotland. It’s only one data point, but they took a seat off the SNP in last week’s Motherwell SE & Ravenscraig council by-election with a 13% swing in 1st preference votes. (Alba came nowhere on 2%, but at least they beat UKIP). I’m predicting Labour to get around 30 seats in Scotland at the coming GE, with the SNP on around 20. We’ll see if I’m right. Some of the latest polling for the whole of Britain has Labour getting a far bigger landslide than in 1997, which I for one really don’t want to be the case:
https://nitter.net/ElectionMapsUK/status/1724893828652605456
I think that Reform UK has become something of a haven for disgruntled pro-Boris Tories. It currently has few policies though, apart from wanting to scrap net zero and cut NHS waiting lists by employing (more of) the private sector – nothing about reducing legal immigration as far as I can make out*. The Tories need to do a deal with its leader Richard Tice to at least prevent them standing in Tory-held seats, as happened last time round with the Brexit Party. Haven’t had any political leaflets through my letterbox yet, but I’m sure I will in due course.
* Correction to my original comment: The latest revised figures just released state that net migration to the UK was almost 750,000 in 2022, so overall legal immigration would have been over 900,000.
All I can say is I hope you are wrong (meant in the nicest possible way). I must admit to being in despair at the direction of our politics.
I have a sense of impending apocalypse – or maybe growing dystopia is nearer. There are, I suspect, some serious jolts on the horizon that might change the picture.
Thanks for your reply Douglas. I’m less worried about the apocalypse now than I was in February last year when Vlad was threatening the West with nuclear Armageddon if we interfered in Ukraine. According to the punters on Betfair, there’s still a 27% chance that Labour won’t get a majority. Maybe they think that Argentina’s mad new president could send his army to invade the Falklands again. Last time round, that sent Thatcher’s Tories straight to the top of the polls after being third behind the Liberal-SDP Alliance and Michael Foot’s Labour.
Enjoy your evening.
We in Scotland don’t fear an infiltration of brown folk because, by and large, we don’t get one.
What we do get is an infiltration of white folk, displaced from their ancestral homelands, by the brown folk. Crowded out, but also immensely wealthy, because the unsustainable inwards pressure on real estate, housing, etc. has made their modest English homes worth fantasy money, which translates to a 5-bed mansion, a new SUV, and 100k banked when they move to Scotland.
That’s the waves of older, richer, white, anti-Indy English, that strangely enough, many Scots fear most of all. I see you acknowledge that part of the equation, but not the root cause.
Our host writes “the ruling doctrine of the sovereignty of the King in Parliament” Which seems a confusing statement to make.
My understanding is that the monarch is not sovereign in parliament or government. Granted, royal assent for legislation is needed before being enacted, but the monarch cannot command or direct what legislation can be introduced. That privilege belongs to the elected legislative body of parliament, the only part of our state that is elected.
The Gina Miller (Brexit) case brought before the Supreme Court, decided that the elected parliament was sovereign over government. The nearest the monarch actually gets to sovereign authority or power is via the relationship between monarch and PM, a relationship that is joined at the hip with ministers.
That relationship barely gives the monarch sovereign influence, if that, over parliament or government.
More importantly, as the elected parliament is chosen by the citizens franchise, that means it is the citizens who are the ultimate sovereign power and authority over and in, parliament.
As far as I am concerned, PM, monarch and ministers govern, parliament has authority over that triumvirate and legislates, and we the citizens are sovereign over the lot of them.
Now then, where did I put my knitting needles…_
I didn’t invent the phrase, Digger, it is the established constitutional concept,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King-in-Parliament
Getting to choose which candidate, out of a list over which you have no control, you send to parliament under no obligation to take any notice of your wishes for five years is not being sovereign in any way, shape or form.
Provided you are not in the police, armed forces, civil service, or are a judge, active member of the House of Lords*, or subject to bankruptcy restrictions, Bayard, if you have £500 to spare and can find ten people on a constituency’s electoral role willing to nominate you, you can exert some control over the list by standing as a candidate yourself.
* Members of the House of Lords can still influence parliamentary elections by donating £8 million to a political party (the largest single donation in UK political history) whilst being a member of another political party:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sainsbury,_Baron_Sainsbury_of_Turville
You know as well as I that that has buggerall effect on the extent of the sovreignity of the people as you have almost no chance of being elected; and, by the remote chance you are elected, zero chance of making it from the legislature into the executive, the only part of the government that has any actual power. Now, if we had no political parties, or all the MPs belonged to the same party (which is pretty much the case now, if you look beyond the badge engineering), things might be different.
Thanks for your reply Bayard. So are you saying that parliament might be different if it wasn’t almost the same as it is now? If enough people vote for them, Independent candidates can get elected. For example, with the likely Tory implosion at the next election, it’s possible that Claire Wright could win in East Devon:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Devon_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
East Devon has form in electing non-mainstream politicians. I believe it’s still the only place to have ever voted a Loony to anything above parish level, electing Stuart Hughes to the district council in 1991, then to Devon County Council in 1993 (though he was a candidate for the Raving Loony Green Giant Party rather than the official Loonies, as he’d fallen out with Howling Laud Hope). He defected to the Tories in 1997, and is still a councillor for the area.
“you have almost no chance of being elected; and, by the remote chance you are elected, zero chance of making it from the legislature into the executive, the only part of the government that has any actual power”
Disproved every month these days, with the coming to real power of new politicians and parties with new policies.
Two this week alone, Argentina and Holland.
You have every chance of being elected if you actually have something to say that strikes voters as being sane, facts-based and grounded in reality. I think I see your problem.
“Disproved every month these days, with the coming to real power of new politicians and parties with new policies.
Two this week alone, Argentina and Holland.”
According to George Galloway, the other day, the new Argentinian politician has announced he intends to liberate the Malvinas and return them to their rightful owners, Argentina, by military force if necessary, lol
I mean no offense Mr Main but if Mr Galloway is correct, can this really be called new?
Forty or so years ago the military junta which ran Argentina mumbled these incantations
And to be fair to British naval tradition – after only the other day comparing it to a large scale Grinder meet-up, I feel must be fair to it – the British armed forces, and particularly the British Navy carried out their mission successfully. That is all that can be asked of organised military force, as things stand currently. They proved Galtieri’s words void, his promise’s empty. Multi-service naval expeditions are notoriously difficult, long distance ones even more so.
A military operation of great difficulty – they did it then but could they do it today? We might be about to find out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronation_Oath_Act_1688
The monarch has been a “monarch” since the army coup d’etat in 1688. Since then all “monarchs” have been overpaid civil servants, pensioners of the public. That’s why Stanley Baldwin, the president, sacked Thick Eddie in 1936.
Craig wrote:
– “In the only Uzbek case in which my intervention ever failed to prevent a deportation, the couple concerned simply vanished on arrival back in Tashkent.”
I remember that case; at Craig’s request on this blog, I wrote to my former MP about it (he has retired since). If I remember correctly, he replied that Craig was wrong and there was no danger. I might still have his reply somewhere.
I remember reading in someone’s autobiography how he was assured by an MP on the eve of WWII that there would be no war because he, the MP, knew these things.
Hi Craig
You are oversimplifying the stance taken by the UK in relation to the binding nature of treaties to which it becomes party. As a matter of international law, the UK doesn’t take the extreme position you ascribe to it – if it did, it would find few other States willing to treat with it. It is only in domestic law that treaties until now have not been cognisable by UK courts unless they have been transformed from international into domestic law by Act of Parliament. This carries with it the risk that the UK will occasionally be in breach of its international obligations because a treaty has not been implemented in this way, and the courts too have been missing tricks, e.g. rejecting the perfectly reasonable proposition that as a matter of administrative law there should be at least a legitimate expectation that the executive will act in accordance with, not contrary to, an unincorporated treaty. Until now successive governments have seemed not to care much if at all about this, but, as you say, things may be changing as a result of this Supreme Court judgment.
Andrew,
Yes, you are right. What I have written is not incompatible, I think. If I have not spelt it all out here, it is because I have discussed it quite frequently in more detail on this blog.
Does that mean that international and domestic law are separate and that treaties only bind the government in its dealings with other countries, not with its own citizens? In which case is the US not bound by the extradition treaty, even if our government isn’t, in a domestic case like that of Julian Assange and how does JA being Australian affect the case?
How separate the two systems are varies from country to country, depending on what place the constitution of each of them gives to international law in the hierarchy of legal norms. I think the dialogue below explains what the US needs to do to get Assange extradited in accordance with the treaty, by which it is indeed bound vis-a-vis the UK. In theory he should be in a better position than a UK national because Australia can exercise the right of consular protection to ensure that he is being properly treated, though that depends on how much political capital Australia is willing to expend on him. Not much under its former government, somewhat more under the current one.
the whole connection of the Assange case to British domestic law is tenuous. He wasn’t a UK citizen. The UK never treated him as it would have treated a UK citizen. They kept him in prison after Sweden was no longer seeking to prosecute him, and for far longer than any normal citizen would have been imprisoned for seeking to evade the British authorities.
Only skimming above, the theory of legal application is that it is self-corrective. Thoughts?
Why would I give you some more thoughts if you can’t bother to even read, let alone engage with, the substantial ones I already set out?
This paragraph… ‘Extraordinarily, the UK openly takes the view that no international law, including treaties it has signed, is ever legally binding on the UK unless it has been explicitly incorporated in UK domestic legislation. The UK does not consider itself bound by treaties it has ratified. ‘
Has ramifications for the UK and Scottish Independence, since the Treaty of Union is both international and internal, and Wesminster has been breaching the terms and conditions since before the ink dried.
The UK lectures the world that if Scotland achieves Indy, it must do so by legally democratically demonstrated means.
The same standard must be applied to the UK… an ability to uphold the terms and conditions in treaties they sign up to.
The UK, with the above arguement, is trying to have its cake and eat it.
Deporting refugees to Africa is safe terrain for an intra-Establishment squabble between hard-right ministers and liberal judges. It would be massively surprising if these judges were similarly contemptuous of Swift’s dismissal of Assange’s appeal. Not only would that tread upon the toes of a US master they utterly revere, they almost certainly thoroughly approve of Julian’s imprisonment, as they did of yours.
It’s a government of men and not of laws. they don’t care about cutting down thickets in the first place
I don’t see the logical basis for assuming that it is a legal requirement for Parliament to incorporate text from a treaty in domestic legislation before the UK is bound by treaties it signs. there is some legal basis based on bad decisions in the past, though.
“This is absolutely crucial in the Assange case, where the US/UK Extradition Treaty of 2003, under which the extradition is taking place, specifically forbids political extradition. The courts have accepted the argument that this is irrelevant as the treaty has no legal force, this text not having been incorporated in any UK domestic legislation.”
Maybe I’m dumb, but if the treaty has no legal force, then why extradite Assange in the first place?
I suspect that the treaty governs how extraditions should be carried out and when, not whether.
Well, apparently this is not so. Here is the text: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/243246/7146.pdf
Please read Article 1.
Article 1 does not exclude extradition in the absence of the treaty, it just guarantees extradition should one party request it. If both parties are agreed, they don’t need article 1.
Yuri, some parts of the treaty have been incorporated into UK domestic legislation: specifically, the parts that enable the government to extradite people. The parts that should protect us from unreasonable extradition have not been incorporated.
Interesting. I thought either the whole treaty is binding or not, but I may be wrong.
As far as I can see, the whole treaty is binding on the UK government with respect to an extradition request from another party to the treaty. Only the parts incorporated into domestic law are binding on the government with respect to their own citizens.
The Treaty only states in Article 3 that “Extradition shall not be refused based on the nationality of the person sought.”
So if Assange was British or Chinese, this won’t matter.
Dearest Craig, Thank you for giving me hope today, cheering me up a bit amid all the horror going on. We must have an independent judiciary otherwise we are just a dictatorship with a pseudo-democratic rubber stamp. Sending people arriving here to Rwanda would, in any case, be like putting a handkerchief on your head in a thunderstorm to keep dry. I suspect the government would rather keep the current status quo to pass the blame for a policy that would clearly fail onto the Supreme Court. In a similar way I wonder who is really interested in the Assange case now. It is just meant as a deterrent to honest journalism exposing government crimes; but these are coming out all over the place in any case (my main fear being that ‘AI’ systems will be used to censor free internet information flow but then we would get some new system for samizdat).
I see South Africa has called on the International Criminal Court to issue an Arrest Warrant for the Israeli Prime Minister.
BBC News has that story on its website.
Israel has recalled its Ambassador in South Africa!
Deporting a whole lot of people to where they will be foreigners in a country with a recent history of genocide; what could possibly go wrong?
Gracing Swift as being “a glib little wanker” does an enormous disservice to glib little wankers everywhere.
Well said Ingwe, glib little wankers, everywhere, already experience massive prejudice and they face an uncertain future in post-imperial Britain, now we are downsizing.
This Swift fellow is of much greater significance in the hierarchy of fools,with his technocratic love for the briefs of the “Special Services” – I mean who would say this?
Maybe a lawyer like Vladimir Putin, 25 years ago before he became the infamous Leviathan we know and love/fear/hate (delete where applicable) today. What does an asset of the “Special Services” sound like, look like, act like etc? In Russia would people class Swift a “silovik”?
Justice Swift is the judge in the case Graham Phillips is bringing against the government’s decision to “sanction” him, i.e. impose a severe penalty without trial. Based on previous form, Swift will presumably rule for the government.
Whatever you think about Graham Phillips, the essence of his “crime” is that he has expressed opinions different from the government’s. As far as I am aware, he is not currently charged with any crime in any jurisdiction, but the government claims it can nevertheless impose an extremely severe punishment on him. If he loses this case, UK citizens have no protection from the government, and most of the criminal law is pointless: the government can destroy your life without trial, and without charging you with any offence.
The outlook is bad, not just because Swift is the judge, but because the government is pulling out all the stops to win. Phillips can’t pay a lawyer because of sanctions – nor can anyone donate money to him, because of sanctions – so his legal ‘team’ consists of two public-spirited lawyers who are willing to work for no fee because they believe the case is important for our civil liberties. The government legal team consists of top-notch (and expensive) barristers, backed up by paralegals, about a dozen people in all.
Even the Daily Mail, which normally you’d expect to support any excess by a Tory government, published an article expressing disquiet. It’s worth reading IMHO.
Hitchens has written previously about the sanctioning of Phillips as of course has Craig Murray. I could only find one short article from the Independent covering the first day, otherwise no interest from the media in general. The majority of the 794 or so comments on the Mail Online were certainly supportive of Hitchens’ arguments that the British State is acting arbitrarily and unfairly and that this is just the tip of the iceberg in eroding rights and freedoms. Some cited Magna Carta. The main opposition came from handfuls of bigoted Russophobes and ignoramuses concerning the Ukraine situation in general and Phillips work in particular, a few ad hominem attacks on Hitchens as a “Putin fanboy” or kind of Lord Haw Haw and some fascistic “my kingdom right or wrong” comments. There were parallels drawn with the Julian Assange situation, though Phillips does not seem to be in the same category of risk of suffering the brutal treatment meted on Assange.
Justice Swift who is as as far removed from his namesake, Jonathan, as the earth is to the sun, after his evisceration by the Supreme Court over Rwanda just might see the error of his legal ways in the Phillips case, though I would not bet on it. There is a lot at stake in all three cases. We can but wait and see which way British justice lies.
British justice lies …
Ach sadly I don’t read anything Craig writes on immigration nor asylum anymore. Yeah, yeah I’m a racist, wheeze, drone…. Got a lot of time for Assange though. Maybe not conflate all of them together.
Very sound logic and precedent, I hope that it can be brought to bear and help Assange get out.
Re Johnathon Swift, I read on Peter Hitchen’s blog that a Mr Justice Swift is presiding over the case of Graham Phillips, UK citizen un-personned for “supporting Russia”
edit, as mentioned above by previous commenters
The analogy you use – that of legislating that the Earth is flat – is not quite the same as the argument that Sunak et al. will offer up to the public. I imagine it will go something like this:
This government is the elected (democratically so) agent for the arrangement of immigration affairs to the satisfaction of the ‘public'(arguable point). We, the government, are sure that the ‘broad will’ of the people is that the current state of affairs wrt to immigration and processing of refugees is unsatisfactory from a number of points of view. In other words the Sunak gov will claim to act with the authority of the mass of the people of the country who believe that the levels and methods of immigration into the UK is insupportable, and government action to alleviate that concern supersedes/outweighs the Supreme Court’s interpretation of obligations and undertakings this country has undertaken, in the past when the issue of immigration was more easily manageable.
In other words, the government is not arguing in favour of a flat Earth, but for a narrow interpretation of the best interests of the population.
I can’t speak for the electorate but I would not be in the least surprised that the majority of people of the UK would accept such a position. Of course there are many highly contentious points subsumed within my thumbnail exposition, but I doubt that any of these would fatally undermine the general thrust of government actions.
It all seems to be part of a pattern of a rejection of principles negotiated within the context of the UN post-WW2, when it was believed that civilisation was waxing and rational negotiation and agreement could be established.
That consensus has slipped away to be replaced by a tempestuous struggle due, I suspect, to a growing desperation, or concern related to the long term viability of the planet itself.
Douglas, I think you have entirely missed the nuanced point being made by Craig. The SC judgment hinges (partly) on whether the court can accept the diplomatic assurances made by the destination country relied upon by the UK Gov wrt to the treatment of refugees sent to that country.
The judgement says UK Gov cannot rely on these, but rather on objective reality as evidenced by reliable external authorities, as well as more direct evidence, as to the fate of refugees.
UK Gov thinks it has a cunning plan to enact into law its (cynically inaccurate) opinion that the destination is safe: that is that “the Earth is flat” against all objective evidence.
Given that this, in no truthful and accurate sense, addresses the concerns of the supreme court, Craig’s point is that it gives rise to the possibility that the court may feel entitled to challenge such a factual absurdity – with the prospect of a direct confrontation between the court and the crown authority vested in parliament, and through it, the executive.
You may be correct that this government is brazen enough to do as you suggest – that is very likely, but the ‘flat earth’ analogy remains sound insofar as they will be rest their case on a patent falsehood and absurdity.
Craig’s point is that it is this intention to legislate a lie into statute that could trigger the constitutional stand-off between the government and the Supreme Court that Craig describes in his very interesting and useful piece.
Thanks for setting me on the right path but don’t think I missed the point. I was making the point that the flat earth analogy was a clumsy rhetorical device because the Sunak strategy will be politically carefully judged to appear reasonable and righteous, regardless of its underlying quality of the policy. (See Stevie Boy’s comment about the Logistics of the Rwanda plan.) This reveals that the Rwanda policy is a farce and it exists only to appease and attract the crazy edge of ‘Reform’ – the Nigel Farage fringe. Comparing to the absurdity of flat earthers misses the target. Sunak will be carefully positioning himself to seem the defender of democracy and its primacy as the ‘will of the people’. It is of course an entirely bogus position for Sunak but it is necessary to reveal the empty insincerity of the tories.
Another argument that can be deployed in favour of processing asylum seekers in a third country is the considerable number of countries that are already doing just that.
Quite a number of third countries too are enjoying the economic benefits from accommodating the asylum seekers while their claims are processed.
It’s more difficult to argue that something is inherently wrong when the precedent for doing it has already been widely established, to little or no effective opposition.
Unfortunately the Wise Owls in the West decided in their ‘ wisdom’ to remove Gadaffi who kept the ‘ Cork in the Bottle ‘
Just as they wisely ‘ Liberated ‘ Iraq and tried to liberate Syria and legged it from Afghanistan.
Lot’s of corks in the bottle there.
Then the Western right wingers have the nerve to pretend that all this ensuing chaos was nothing to do with their decisions and actions.
Very much like the latest incarnation of the Tory Party blaming everyone except themselves for the lack of investment in Public Services.
More hard faced than The man in the Iron Mask – as are their voters. who will vote for them again.
It is an interesting concept in Europe that the centre never ( or rarely ) goes left when the proverbial hits the fan – they veer dramatically to the right as a panacea.
Protectionism is economically useless to the mass of the people – but it is very useful to the already rich who wish to get richer.
They do this by getting the ‘ left behind’ to punch down – not up thereby not threatening the rich and powerful.
There’s a word for that – Cowardice as they actually fear the rich and they think they need to rely on the rich for employment and income.
What economic benefits and where exactly?
Or just more brown envelopes into the usual hands of the local enabler class?
Craig,
“Anyone paying attention to social media is bound to have noticed the correlation between support for the Rwanda proposal and support for Israel’s genocidal actions. I suppose it is all a part of a general racism and Islamophobia.”
Even if we accept your bare assertion that there is a general correlation between the two views, this argument fails by introspection. For example, I support the Rwanda proposal (in the rather lukewarm sense that I can’t see anything unethical about it) but I definitely oppose Israel’s actions in Gaza. So I know your assertion that both views are “all a part of a general racism and Islamophobia” is false in my case, which disinclines me to believe that the assertion is true of other people too. And, as is the way of things, unfortunately prejudices me against the rest of your argument.
I simply can’t see any connection between the two issues. You do, probably because you think that everybody who opposes uncontrolled immigration must hate foreigners, especially the Muslims who predominate among migrants. But in your more rational moments you must see that that isn’t necessarily true.
“So I know your assertion that both views are “all a part of a general racism and Islamophobia” is false in my case, which disinclines me to believe that the assertion is true of other people too.”
You are arguing from the particular to the general, which is fallacious. Despite your exception, it remains the case that racists and islamophobes are likely to be in favour of both deporting illegal migrants to Rwanda and the current policies of the Israeli government. That you – who, I trust, are neither a racist nor an islamophobe – are in favour of the former but not of the latter is neither here nor there.
I hope this will work as a strategy but fear it won’t for the reasons that we have an established practise of firstly, extraditing to the US and secondly, where it is for a capital murder case, receiving assurances that the death penalty will not be sought and for those assurances to have been kept.
They can say, correctly, that previous assurances given have been met and that given the long history of this there is no reason to think a single case coming before them now should be any different.
I hope that your point proves successful though, Assange’s imprisonment is a stain on us all..
“Glib little wanker” or too lazy to read much about asylum law or Assange’s 150-page appeal? I’m pretty convinced he didn’t read the latter. How could it be heard by the Supreme Court? They already rejected his appeal relating to the assurances.
On the “flat earth” question:
Parliament is clearly sovereign in legislative matters, but on what authority can it determine fact at all, let alone fact against the judgment of the courts or of common sense?
re the “Flat Earth” question:
it seems to me this might well arise (if it hasn’t already) in the context of Scottish legislation stating whether certain people are in fact men or women
If the other party to a bilateral treaty has ratified that treaty as well as the Parliament’s act of ratification of the same treaty bind the Parliament and the government to honour and enforce that stipulation of the treaty? If not, what good is the fidelity to any act of Parliamentary legal genesis? Not much by the looks of British honour let alone word. No wonder the cry of the day is “rules based order”, not lawful order.
Just an opinion.
Addendum:
It is to be noted that should two identical diplomatic treaty documents both be ratified and one is not lawful, then the document ratified by Parliament is an act of fraud, both diplomatic as well as legal. But then that looks to be a historic policy.