Latest news with #LordHermer
Daily Mail
16 hours ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Lord Hermer is 'doing Reform's work' by ignoring voters' immigration fears, Labour politicians warn
Attorney General Lord Hermer came under fire from senior Labour politicians last night who accused him of 'doing Reform's work' by ignoring voters' concerns over immigration. He faced criticism for comparing calls to pull the UK out of international courts to the early days of Nazi Germany. Last night, Labour MP and ex-minister Graham Stringer openly accused Lord Hermer of aiding the rise of Nigel Farage 's Reform UK. Mr Stringer told The Mail on Sunday: 'He's convincing Labour voters [that the party] does not understand their legitimate concerns about immigration. 'It is not far-Right and Nazi to raise genuine concerns about the scale of immigration and the cost of housing migrants. He's doing Reform's work for them.' And Labour peer Lord Glasman, founder of the influential Blue Labour movement, added that the Attorney General's remarks made him 'unfit for government office'. In a speech last week, Lord Hermer invoked 1930s' Germany to criticise Tory and Reform MPs who have called for the UK to quit institutions such as the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)to better deal with illegal migration. He said: 'This is not a new song. The claim that international law is fine as far as it goes, but can be put aside when conditions change, is a claim… made in the early 1930s by 'realist' jurists in Germany – most notably Carl Schmitt, whose central thesis was… that state power is all that counts, not law.' Schmitt was a leading Nazi ideologist who backed Hitler's moves to override the German constitution and rule by decree in 1933. Lord Hermer apologised for his 'clumsy' choice of words and his Nazi Germany reference, but stuck by the theme of his speech 'defending international law which underpins our security'. However, his words sparked anger across the political divide, with even Labour Cabinet ministers understood to be livid at his reference. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, whose own policy is to 'disengage' from the ECHR, called on Sir Keir Starmer, a long-term friend of Lord Hermer, to dismiss him for his 'embarrassing, dangerous' remarks and repeated criticisms of the Attorney General over the surrender of the strategically important Chagos Islands. And Mr Stringer added: 'Lord Hermer should never have been appointed in the first place. It's his ridiculous advice… that has led us to spend £30 billion to keep a military base we already had.' Last night, No 10 said that the Attorney General still had the PM's full confidence.
The Sun
2 days ago
- Business
- The Sun
Lord Hermer must accept that he is in Cabinet to serve the interests of his country or his days will be numbered
Lord Harmer HOW much more of the smug and horribly out of touch Attorney General Lord Richard Hermer must we put up with? More than 80 per cent of the country is demanding less immigration. 1 A big chunk want none at all. The only way we can truly wrest back control of our borders — especially to tackle illegal migration — is to fundamentally fix our relationship with the ECHR. Or quit it all together. Breathtakingly, Lord Hermer compares any such suggestion with Nazism. Is he really likening the thoughts of most ordinary Brits to the most evil regime in human history? If so, then he is unfit for his office. Despite his forced apology yesterday, his Lordship still fails to understand that he is now in Government — not performing for his legal echo chamber. The public wants change — which is why Keir Starmer speaks of Britain becoming an ' island of strangers '. Unless Hermer accepts that he is in Cabinet to serve the interests of his country — not his friends in the human rights lobby — his days will be numbered. Soft cell hell THERE will be many who feel Southport monster Axel Rudakubana doesn't deserve to still be alive. So the idea that he continues to receive jail privileges despite launching a brutal attack on guards is sickening. Winston Churchill would be aghast at the creeping power of Euro judges – we must ditch them, Robert Jenrick says Why should prison officers have to face the daily threat of attack while he enjoys his home comforts? The truth is that across the prison service beasts like Rudakubana are being molly-coddled. Just this week, we revealed how the brother of the Manchester Arena suicide bomber was allowed to make a compensation claim for what he said were breaches of his religious rights. Yet officers in the specialist Islamic unit where Hashem Abedi is held at Frankland Prison fear that one day a colleague will be beheaded. Lock up these murdering scum and stop pandering to their demands. Do your duty WERE it not for The Sun's Keep it Down campaign, fuel prices would still be at record levels. As it is, they are now the lowest since 2021 thanks to the cut in fuel duty fought for by this newspaper. Ending that relief for motorists would be highly damaging for growth. Last October, Chancellor Rachel Reeves rightly understood that scrapping the 14-year freeze would hammer working people. She mustn't be tempted — as she grapples with a £150billion deficit — to fleece drivers already clobbered by the highest taxes in 80 years.
The Sun
2 days ago
- General
- The Sun
Hermer and Starmer are drunk on concept of international law…and their blind faith to it is leading us down dark path
THE longer a political argument goes on, US lawyer Mike Godwin wrote back in 1990, the greater the probability that it will end with a comparison with the Nazis. It is inevitable, in other words. If 'Godwin's Law', as it has come to be termed, was true 35 years ago, it is even more so now. 4 4 Attorney General Lord Hermer has become the latest to make the jibe, during a lecture at defence think-tank the Royal United Services Institute. In it, he compared the arguments of those who want to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) — which includes Reform UK and many Conservatives as well as ex-Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption — to those of Nazi lawyers who rejected international law. To be fair to Hermer, he didn't quite call Nigel Farage or Kemi Badenoch 'Nazis', but he did accuse them of naivety, suggesting that they would embolden dictators like Vladimir Putin. Chemical warfare Only human rights treaties, he asserts, stand between us and a return to fascism. I don't know what world Lord Hermer is living in, but Russia's membership of the ECHR didn't exactly stop Putin bumping off his enemies, invading Crimea and waging chemical warfare on the streets of Britain with the Skripal poisonings. It was only when he attempted to annex the rest of Ukraine in 2022 by blasting its cities and sending in the tanks that the Council of Europe, which oversees the ECHR, finally had enough and suspended Russia's membership. At the time there were more than 17,000 cases pending against Russia before the European Court of Human Rights. So much for the effectiveness of international law. Meanwhile, as we have seen over and over again, the ECHR is being used by activist lawyers to frustrate the deportation of illegal migrants — serious criminals and terrorists among them. If your child doesn't like the chicken nuggets available back home in Albania, or if your conviction for sex offences against children will make you unpopular back in Iraq, deporting you is, apparently, a terrible breach of your human rights. Starmer signs deal with Mauritius to hand over Chagos Islands The 'right to a family life' now seems to mean pretty well anything, including the right to run a criminal gang in Britain. This is as far from the original intentions of the ECHR as could be imagined. Those who drafted it in 1950 would be turning in their graves if they knew what it had become. Hermer and Starmer are simply drunk on the concept of international law The convention, as written then, contained relatively few clauses but ones on which most of humanity could agree, such as a prohibition against torture. It didn't even ban the death penalty. Over the years, however, it has been expanded via various protocols, many of them highly political. Activist judges have been able to interpret the convention how they wish, using something called 'living instrument doctrine'. Democracy doesn't seem to count for much. Unlike the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which predates the ECHR by two years and declares that 'the will of the people shall be the basis of government', the ECHR provides no such assurance. That is why it must go. It has become an instrument for an elite band of lawyers to rule over the rest of us, suppressing democratic will. Not that this will cut much ice with the likes of Hermer and Keir Starmer. They won't want to dump the ECHR, or other such structures of international law, because they, of course, are members of that elite — it would be like turkeys voting for Christmas. Again, to be fair to Hermer, he did acknowledge that there are some problems with the ECHR, and suggested it might have to be renegotiated. But we have had endless amendments and they have ended the same way — with ever more protocols giving activist judges ever more powers. Hermer and Starmer are simply drunk on the concept of international law. Even when they can see its faults they can't pull themselves away from it, can't bring themselves to ask whether Britain really needs to be a member of every supra-national treaty and body. They end up being suckers for the devious agendas of people who populate those bodies. Lord Hermer's big idea is 'progressive realism', which he defines as 'a rejection of the siren song that can sadly now be heard in the Palace of Westminster, not to mention some sections of the media, that Britain abandon the constraints of international law in favour of raw power'. 4 Perverse ruling But we have already seen where a blind faith in international law leads: for example, to the outrage of the Chagos Islands being given away to Mauritius, a country which has never had ownership of the islands. The Chagos Islands, by the way, were uninhabited before European settlement. But then came the perverse ruling of a body called the International Court of Justice and Starmer, of course, could not bring himself to argue against it. Russia's membership of the ECHR didn't exactly stop Putin bumping off his enemies, invading Crimea and waging chemical warfare on the streets of Britain with the Skripal poisonings The result is not just a multi-billion-pound bill for UK taxpayers to lease back our military base: we have handed sovereignty of a strategic group of islands to a country which is becoming increasingly friendly with China — a nation whose autocratic government doesn't give a damn for human rights. That is where a pedantic following of international law gets you. As Mike Godwin argued, comparing everyone and everything you don't like to the Nazis belittles the Holocaust. But the beneficiaries of Hermer and Starmer's progressive realism aren't exactly lovers of freedom and democracy. On the contrary, a blind faith in international law is leading Britain down a dark path.
The Independent
2 days ago
- General
- The Independent
Lord Hermer ‘regrets' comparing Reform and Tories' policy to Nazi Germany
The Attorney General has expressed regret over his remarks comparing calls for the UK to withdraw from international courts to 1930s Germany. In a statement, Lord Richard Hermer's spokesperson said that he acknowledged his "choice of words was clumsy" and 'regrets' them, but rejected "the characterisation of his speech by the Conservatives". Lord Hermer faced backlash for a speech on Thursday in which he criticised politicians who argued that Britain "abandons the constraints of international law in favour of raw power". Arguing that similar claims had been made "in the early 1930s by 'realist' jurists in Germany", Lord Hermer added that abandoning international law would only "give succour to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin". He also said that because of what happened "in 1933, far-sighted individuals rebuilt and transformed the institutions of international law". That was the year that Adolf Hitler became German chancellor. The speech prompted Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who has suggested the UK would have to leave the ECHR if it stops the country from doing 'what is right', to accuse Lord Hermer of 'starting from a position of self loathing, where Britain is always wrong and everyone else is right'. In a post on social media, she said: 'The fact is laws go bad and need changing, institutions get corrupted. 'Our sovereignty is being eroded by out-of-date treaties and courts acting outside their jurisdiction. 'Pointing this out does not make anyone a Nazi. Labour have embarrassed themselves again with this comparison and unless the Prime Minister demands a retraction from his Attorney General, we can only assume these slurs reflect Keir Starmer's own view.' Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has said he would get rid of the ECHR, and told ITV in April that 'we have to get back the ability to decide, can we really control our borders'. Lord Hermer's spokesman said: 'The Attorney General gave a speech defending international law which underpins our security, protects against threats from aggressive states like Russia and helps tackle organised immigration crime. 'He rejects the characterisation of his speech by the Conservatives. He acknowledges though that his choice of words was clumsy and regrets having used this reference.' In his same speech to the Royal United Services Institute on Thursday, the Attorney General said 'we must not stagnate in our approach to international rules' and that officials should 'look to apply and adapt existing obligations to address new situations'. 'We must be ready to reform where necessary,' he added.
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- General
- Daily Mail
Starmer's top legal adviser forced to apologize for Nazi remarks
Keir Starmer is under pressure to sack his top legal adviser today over a speech in which he compared demands that the UK quit the European Convention on Human Rights to early Nazi ideology. Attorney General Lord Hermer today apologised for an astonishing speech last night in which he accused right wing MPs and the media of being behind a 'siren song' pushing for Britain to drop international law. Speaking at a London think tank the former human rights lawyer and close friend of the Prime Minister said such 'songs' had been heard before, citing Nazi ideologist Carl Schmitt, who supported Hitler's policies such as the Night of the Long Knives assassinations in 1934. The comparison triggered uproar today, with Robert Jenrick , a leading Tory proponent of leaving, branding it 'appalling'. This afternoon a spokeswoman for the Attorney General said he rejected the Tories' 'characterisation' of his speech at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). She said he was 'defending international law which underpins our security, protects against threats from aggressive states like Russia and helps tackle organised immigration crime ', but added : 'He acknowledges though that his choice of words was clumsy and regrets having used this reference.' Tory leader Kemi Badenoch called on the PM to sack the peer, who has been at the centre of controversy since being ennobled last year. 'From refusing to fight the case against Kneecap, to advising the government to hand over £30 billion and our territory in the Chagos Islands, Lord Hermer has shown appalling judgment time and again,' she said. 'Now he's calling people who disagree with him Nazis. This isn't just embarrassing, it's dangerous. Hermer doesn't understand government. He believes in the rule of lawyers, not the rule of law. 'If Keir Starmer had any backbone, he'd sack him. But will he risk upsetting his old friend and former donor? I doubt it.' Lord Hermer used his lecture to say the Labour Government had a 'policy of progressive realism' that means it will never leave international conventions such as the ECHR. Numerous senior politicians on the Right have called for Britain to leave the convention after it blocked Rwanda deportation flights. Mrs Badenoch has stopped short of calling for the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), as other Conservative figures have advocated. However, she suggested the UK would have to leave the convention if it stops the country from doing 'what is right'. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has said he would get rid of the ECHR, and told ITV in April that 'we have to get back the ability to decide, can we really control our borders'. In his lecture, the Attorney General said: 'Our approach is a rejection of the siren song that can sadly now be heard in the Palace of Westminster and in some spectrums of the media, that Britain abandons the constraints of international law in favour of raw power. 'This is not a new song. The claim that international law is fine as far as it goes, but can be put aside when conditions change, is a claim that was made in the early 1930s by 'realist' jurists in Germany , most notably Carl Schmitt, whose central thesis was in essence the claim that state power is all that counts, not law. 'Because of the experience of what followed in 1933, far-sighted individuals rebuilt and transformed the institutions of international law, as well as internal constitutional law.' He conceded that 'international law cannot stand still and rest on its laurels', that it must be 'critiqued and where necessary reformed and improved' and that 'we must be ready to reform where necessary'. Education Minister Catherine McKinnell this morning said that his speech had been 'quite thoughtful'. And she doubled down on the link between quitting the ECHR and dictators, telling Times Radio: 'Any discussion around withdrawing from the international stage just supports people and the agenda of people like [Vladimir] Putin.' But critics point out that the ECHR is unlikely to bow to calls for reform amid accusations it has overstepped its remit in a string of cases. Tory justice spokesman Mr Jenrick, an advocate of ending Britain's 72-year membership, said: 'The idea you can reform the ECHR is fanciful as it requires unanimity from all 46 signatories. 'It is appalling Hermer would insinuate those who think we should leave the ECHR are like the Nazis. '[Foreign Secretary] David Lammy tried that disgusting smeer with Brexiteers and it didn't work for him. It won't work for Hermer either. 'It seems Labour haven't learned a thing.' The row comes after complaints about Lord Hermer, who is a close friend of the Prime Minister, both having been human rights lawyers. His suitability has also been questioned after it emerged that, before taking up the role last year, he repeatedly brought cases against the Government on behalf of terrorists, including 9/11 plotter Mustafa al-Hawsawi and jihadi bride Shamima Begum. He also acted for former Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, who has always denied being a member of the IRA. The Attorney General's office was contacted for comment.
