Does anyone really think the UN can shame the UK over human rights failings?

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So the UK has a worse record for supporting United Nations recommendations on human rights than Saudi Arabia. That’s shaming.

Among those who should be particularly ashamed is Home Secretary Amber Rudd. We are being criticised over the fact that we can hold people in detention centres for unlimited periods of time and she is a serious offender – ignoring even court orders telling her to release at least one detainee.

Ms Rudd is also notorious for deporting people – sending them back to their home country where they may face danger or even death.

But that isn’t all. The Department for Work and Pensions, its ministers, and the minority Tory government in general, along with those who were Liberal Democrat and Conservative MPs during the time of the Coalition Government and the short-lived Tory government of 2015-17, are all guilty of failing to uphold the human rights of people with long-term illnesses and disabilities.

At the present time the Tories are busily denying having caused any harm to the sick and/or disabled, even though the statistics tell a different story.

It is hard to imagine the UK doing anything regarding recommendations on abortion either, with the minority Conservative government dependent on the anti-abortion DUP to win votes in the Commons.

And what will happen after this week’s showdown? I’ll tell you:

Absolutely nothing.

The UN has no power to force the UK into upholding the human rights of its citizens – and, it seems, is unable to impose sanctions on this country for failing to do so.

Therefore the Tories can continue to do exactly whatever they like to the vulnerable. And they will.

There isn’t even the possibility of the Tories feeling ashamed. They don’t get embarrassed about hurting anybody in a weaker position then themselves.

Just look at Amber Rudd.

Britain is heading for a confrontation this week at the UN human rights council over its failure to support more than 100 recommendations on subjects ranging from the rights of children to the international law on abortion.

David Isaac, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), will attend the UN’s universal periodic review (UPR) of the UK’s human rights record in Geneva, a process which takes place for every country once every five years.

Among the recommendations that the government has declined to back, a number outline the need for the UK to limit how long someone can be held in an immigration detention centre. The UK is the only European country without such a time limit.

Britain has also declined to support recommendations on the detention of children in immigration centres. Of a total of 229 recommendations by UN members, the government will confirm that it is supporting just 96 – 42% of the total. The government has chosen simply to “note” the remainder.

Source: Britain faces rebuke over refusal to back more than 100 UN human rights targets | Law | The Guardian


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6 thoughts on “Does anyone really think the UN can shame the UK over human rights failings?

  1. marcusdemowbray

    Interesting to consider that Winston Churchill is still the great Tory hero, but seem oblivious of the fact that by the end of WW2 it was he who was the prime mover of getting Europe and other nations to work together and introduce Human Rights Laws in an attempt to make Europe and the rest of the world a peaceful and fairer place. They also worship Adam Smith, yet their “Neo-Liberal” Dogma has seen so much of UK sold off to foreign countries and corporations, many of which take profits out of UK, pay low or even NO wages, and pay little or NO UK Tax. If Churchill and Smith came back to life now in Tory Britain I reckon they would demand that every Tory and Blair Cabinet from Thatcher’s time should be convicted of High Treason, taken to Tyburn Hill and hanged until they are “Dead, Dead. Dead.”

  2. PJB

    No,because the Tories don’t even care about any of the British people, just just laugh at us for letting them rip us all off.

  3. Jackie Ware

    The human rights are failing because you make it so hard to send back terrorists and rapists.The human rights are not for the people of this country,they seem to work for everyone else tho(everyone except English people).Shameful behaviour,maybe thats why we got Brexit.Roll on the day we can make our own rules as the European ones arn’t working for us as a country.

      1. Lynn Jenks

        It’s astonishing that anyone can still think like this. But that’s what we’re up against. ‘The European ones aren’t working for us as a country’? No – they only stop the government from polluting and destroying the environment and poisoning our food for the benefit of the pharmaceutical industry.

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