Tag Archives: lawyer

Tories ‘normalising fascism’ by threatening life imprisonment for ‘coaching’ migrants

Robert Jenrick: he has strange priorities with regard to punishing wrongdoing. Is that because he has done so much wrong himself?

Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick has been roundly condemned over a plan to send lawyers to prison for life if they are deemed to have been “coaching” migrants on how to “abuse the immigration system”.

In a statement to the House of Commons, he said lawyers charged with “assisting unlawful immigration to the UK” could face sentences on a par with or even longer than those convicted for fraud, causing death by dangerous driving or sexually assaulting a child under 13.

The announcement follows a Daily Mail investigation in August that claimed solicitors had agreed to help an undercover journalist posing as an economic migrant submit a false application in exchange for thousands of pounds.

In August, the Ministry of Justice and Home Office jointly introduced the Professional Enablers Taskforce to crackdown on “crooked” immigration lawyers who “coach illegal migrants to lie”.

His statement has led to harsh criticism for Jenrick. Here’s a video clip of him making it, and a comment by Unite’s Howard Beckett that he is “normalising fascism”:

“Not content enough with banning Mickey Mouse paintings from children’s asylum centres, Jenrick now proposes life in prison for lawyers defending human rights,” posted Rosena Allin-Khan – who now has plenty of time for this sort of thing, after Keir Starmer did away with her shadow mental health portfolio.

“This should terrify all of us,” added Peter Stefanovic of the CWU. “When this rotten to the core bunch of truth twisters are not robbing millions of workers of their democratic right to strike & stripping back our right to protest they are preparing to imprison human rights lawyers for life.”

Jolyon Maugham of the Good Law Project injected the prospect of sanity: “More likely that no lawyer will ever be convicted than that a lawyer will be imprisoned for life. Even so. This splenetic fury, these wild threats, speak of what the Tories have become.”

It’s just another day in the office for Jenrick, of course.

His last appearance of any note in the news was in April, when he was banned from driving for six months and fined more than £1,600 after he was caught breaking the speed limit on the M1, following an appearance on the BBC’s Any Questions.

The Tory MP for Newark was recorded driving his Land Rover at 68mph in a temporary 40mph zone on the M1 southbound in Northamptonshire on August 5 last year, after appearing on the radio show at Wakefield Cathedral in West Yorkshire.

He was fined £1,107 and ordered to pay a £442 victim surcharge and £90 in costs, the Courts and Tribunals Service centre said. You can form your own value judgement about the difference between this and the fine penalty he’s slapping on lawyers.

And he’s habitual: In March last year Jenrick was fined £307 and handed three penalty points for breaking a 40mph speed limit on the A40 in west London in August 2021.

Jenrick is best-known for fiddling an inner-London development in order to deprive the local council of a huge fee.

Not only did he override both the local planning authority and the Independent Planning Inspectorate to grant planning permission for Richard Desmond’s controversial Westferry development, despite it having been found not to meet acceptable planning standards…

… but he did it to allow the developer to avoid paying a £45 million levy to Tower Hamlets Council that he had decided should not apply – and then used that as his reason for granting the application.

Text messages between Desmond and Jenrick show the former Express newspaper owner and pornographer pressured the minister to grant planning permission, saying: “We don’t want to give Marxists loads of doe [sic] for nothing!”

Jenrick also broke Covid-19 lockdown rules to travel between his three homes – and then insisted that young people should adhere to restrictions, even though there was no evidence to suggest they did not.

And he corruptly induced a fellow MP to approve a grant for his constituency totalling £237 per person recently – but negotiated Covid-19 support for the people of Manchester down to £7.95 per person.

So it seems, in a comparison between Jenrick and any lawyer he wants to convict, it is the government minister who would appear to be the most crooked.


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Suella Braverman has deliberately endangered a lawyer acting for asylum-seekers

Face of evil? Suella Braverman’s dossier attacking immigration lawyer Jacqueline McKenzie seems to be not only dishonest and illegal, but also racist.

Let’s see if I’ve got this right: the Home Secretary of the United Kingdom has deliberately released a dossier filled with lies in order to get the media to harass an immigration lawyer, thereby putting her in danger. Is that correct?

I refer to a four-page document created by Suella Braverman (or ordered by her), and sent to right wing papers the Telegraph, Mail, Sun and Express.

It contained a series of falsehoods about Jacqueline McKenzie, head of immigration and asylum at the law firm Leigh Day, which she herself described as follows, in an article for The Guardian:

Someone had drawn a diagram linking Keir Starmer to anyone who challenged the Conservatives’ Rwanda plan. There was mention of a case in which I represented a Jamaican man who had lived in the UK from the age of nine and was facing deportation. It said that I was a hired adviser on race to Starmer, when in fact I am an unpaid volunteer on a working group set up by Labour to look at race disparities across a number of indicators, just as the Conservatives did with the Sewell report.

It also “outed” me as a trustee of Detention Action, a well-respected NGO supporting people in immigration detention centres, presumably because the organisation challenged the Rwanda scheme in the courts. The dossier did not mention that I had become a trustee after that challenge. I did represent a man who was one of seven shackled on the tarmac waiting to be flown to Rwanda before the flight was grounded by the courts. I feel no shame: a doctor in the immigration detention centre confirmed that my client displayed signs of being a victim of torture.

A statement in support of Ms McKenzie by her colleagues at Leigh Day points out:

Omitted from the briefing was Jacqueline’s involvement on another group chaired by Priti Patel MP on the Windrush Scandal and the 90% of her work which is focused on legal support for victims of the Windrush Scandal.

Another Guardian report quoted the actual Tory document:

The party’s document, which had the heading, “Revealed: senior Labour advisor is lefty lawyer blocking Rwanda deportations”, sought to highlight McKenzie’s links to the party and her work on immigration cases, she said.

The Tory dossier said: “Just last year, she [McKenzie] helped a Jamaican criminal lodge last-minute appeal to deportation because of his high blood pressure. The foreign-born crook had just served an eight-year prison sentence for kidnapping.

“[Labour leader Keir] Starmer has been keen to distance himself from previous remarks and convince voters that he can be trusted on immigration.

“But his decision to hire lefty lawyer Jacqueline McKenzie is further proof that ‘Sir Softie’ can’t be trusted.”

A spokesperson for the Conservative Party intensified the attack in a comment for the same article, stating:

“It’s no secret that an activist blob of leftwing lawyers, dubious campaign groups and the Labour party are trying to frustrate our efforts to stop the boats and deport more foreign criminals.”

Ms McKenzie has made her opinion on the reasons for the Tory attack on her abundantly clear:

There is no doubt this story was timed to accompany the moving of asylum seekers, many traumatised, on to the Bibby Stockholm. The government attacks vulnerable people and those like myself, who represent them in order to distract from issues that the electorate prioritise: the cost-of-living crisis, the environment and the NHS.

This flagrant attack on me and my work, built on misinformation and mischaracterisation and underpinned by racism and misogyny, is a dark day for our political sphere. It represents a serious slur on the integrity and independence of thousands of hardworking and upstanding lawyers.

I’ve saved the worst for last: The attack on Ms McKenzie has put her in danger, along with those around her:

The hit job on me was vile and self-serving, and put me and those close to me at considerable risk of physical harm. I’m having to take security advice and precautions, such is the seriousness I place on ominous emails I have received.

The Tory dossier was not only full of lies; it deliberately and falsely alleged that Ms McKenzie was politically biased – a claim that has outraged members of the legal profession, not just at Leigh Day but across the UK.

According to the Leigh Day statement,

Lawyers should not be criticised for doing their jobs. People are entitled to have legal representation when faced with removal from the country, or indeed being moved to accommodation which may be unsuitable. Many of the clients represented by Jacqueline’s team have been through trauma, torture or incredible hardship. In a civilised society they should be treated with compassion and understanding as well as having the law applied accurately and fairly to the individual circumstances of their case.

While the work we do as a firm is not always popular we strive to provide access to justice to all whether that is bereaved families who need help finding answers through the inquest process, those who have been seriously injured on our roads, employees who have been discriminated against by their employers and international communities who bear the brunt of multinational corporations wreaking havoc on their local environments. This commitment to access to justice for all extends to those seeking asylum in this country or who need support with their immigration status.

We are proud of the work we do and will not be cowed by a government whose strategy appears to be to attack and demonise lawyers, and the judiciary, merely for working to ensure the laws of this country are upheld.

It is a position that the Law Society, which represents and supports solicitors across England and Wales, and the Bar Council, its counterpart organisation for barristers, fully supports:

Their full statement runs as follows:

“Everyone is entitled to legal representation, and it is a United Nations basic principle that lawyers should not be identified with the causes of their clients as a result of representing them.

“The legal community is gravely concerned by the experience of immigration solicitor Jacqueline McKenzie.

“That is why – as we have said repeatedly – it is wrong to describe lawyers as ‘lefty’ or ‘activist’ simply on the basis of the causes they advocate on behalf of their clients.

“Lawyers who represent their clients are not only doing nothing wrong, they are doing exactly what they are supposed to do in playing their part in ensuring that the rule of law is upheld. Ms McKenzie has been doing exactly what she is supposed to do as an immigration solicitor, acting in the best interests of her clients within the constraints of the law.

“Political leaders know that lawyers represent their clients within the legal framework that parliament creates and CCHQ should seriously reflect on what has happened in this case.

“Language and actions that unfairly undermine confidence in the independence of the legal professions, and potentially risk the safety of lawyers, will ultimately undermine confidence in our entire justice system and the rule of law.”

It seems clear to This Writer that the dossier of lies about Ms McKenzie is part of the “crackdown” on “rogue lawyers” that the Tory government announced earlier this month.

At the time, Justice Secretary Alex Chalk claimed that the aim was to stop a minority of lawyers who were making false claims in order to allow people who should be deported to stay in the UK.

He seemed to be having trouble getting his words out and, if the attack on Ms McKenzie is representative of the Tory plan, this should be unsurprising. It can be hard to present a pack of lies as factual information.

Even then, the Law Society was pointing out the errors in the Tory claims:

So:

The Tories’ claim to be cracking down on a small number of lawyers who are dishonestly and illegally playing the system on behalf of foreigners who should not be in the UK seems to be a cover for an attack on entirely respectable lawyers that is itself dishonest and illegal.

But then, what can we expect from a Home Secretary whose own word cannot be trusted?

One final point that I haven’t mentioned before: Ms McKenzie is black. This Tory “crackdown” on asylum-seekers and those who represent them is not only dishonest and illegal; it is also racist.


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Now MPs want Boris Johnson to pay back public funding for his Partygate lawyers

Payment: if Tory backbenchers block a motion for Boris Johnson to repay the public money used to fund his Partygate Inquiry lawyers, they’ll make second-class citizens of themselves. If they don’t, they’ll be admitting that more than a decade of Tory policies letting the rich siphon cash from the poor for no good reason are wrong.

Is this sour grapes from MPs who fear … second-class treatment (gosh)?

Opposition MPs led by Labour’s Karl Turner have demanded that Boris Johnson pay back £245,000 of public money the government provided to pay lawyers acting for him in the Partygate Inquiry.

The Cabinet Office decided to cover Johnson’s legal costs for the inquiry last year, when he was still prime minister, and has tried to justify the decision by claiming there is a precedent for supporting former ministers with legal representation.

There’s just one snag: the government has not been able to name a single example of a former minister receiving taxpayer-funded legal support for a parliamentary inquiry.

On the other hand

The BBC has spoken to two former ministers who were investigated by MPs for misleading Parliament and were not given legal support.

The former Labour MP and transport secretary, Stephen Byers, was not offered legal support when he faced a four-month inquiry in 2005.

Nor was the former Labour MP and paymaster general, Geoffrey Robinson, who was found to have “inadvertently” misled MPs in 2001.

So it seems Johnson has been given preferential treatment – and this has created a precedent.

Mr Turner reckons it means there is now a two-tier system: ministers and former ministers receive legal support to fight parliamentary inquiries, and backbench MPs do not.

He said it created a system that unfairly advantages ministers and former ministers who get their excessively large bills paid using public money, while backbenchers have to pay their own way.

The unfairness is heightened by the fact that Johnson is a multi-millionaire who is perfectly capable of paying his own legal bills – even when employing top public lawyers. Many backbenchers have fewer resources and such bills would put the same kind of legal help beyond their means.

You’d think this would remind some MPs of the way things are outside Westminster, wouldn’t you?

The UK has millions of people who can’t afford to eat a decent meal every day. The government could change that… but instead the only major changes to the system have provided the already-rich with more, and made it possible for them to suck money out of the masses.

So Tory MPs in particular are between a rock and a hard place here.

They can block the motion – showing they believe a small elite deserve the best, most expensive support they can get, all at the expense of the general public, just as is true in the country at large, with the poverty-stricken masses supporting the rich.

Or they can support it and make hypocrites of themselves, because they would be supporting the principle that everybody deserves the same chance and the rich don’t deserve more advantages than they already have.

Let’s hear them talk their way out of that one!


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Boris Johnson’s new lawyers may cost the public more than £1 million. Why pay them?

Money, money, money: why doesn’t Boris Johnson spend some of his own, instead of ours, for a change?

Boris Johnson has sacked the legal team selected for him by the government, after its members provided information to the Cabinet Office that led to a new criminal investigation

And now…

Taxpayers are set to be billed more than a million pounds for Boris Johnson ’s new lawyers, after he sacked the government-provided legal team defending him at the Covid-19 inquiry.

In fact, taxpayers aren’t paying for it – other than indirectly. It’s public money, and if the government wants us to pay it, it will need to tax the money back from us. That hasn’t happened yet.

That being said: I don’t see any reason for the public to continue paying for lawyers that public servants didn’t appoint.

I mean,

It doesn’t seem right, does it?

If he wants to hire his own lawyers, he should damn well pay them himself.

Source: Boris Johnson’s new lawyers set to cost taxpayers more than £1 million – Mirror Online


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Boris Johnson earns £1m in six weeks, but taxpayer gets his bill for legal fees | The Times

Money, money, money: but Boris Johnson never seems to use any of his own – it’s always yours.

This is the story – and I should have got to it before The Times, of all places:

Boris Johnson has earned nearly a million pounds in just over six weeks – but is claiming public money for legal representation at the Partygate inquiry – and the amount seems to be limitless.

Sadly, the story is behind a paywall, so this is all I can show you –

Boris Johnson has earned nearly a million pounds in just over six weeks, it has been revealed. The former prime minister registered more than half a million po

– plus the link below.

His earnings were mentioned in a previous Vox Political piece, here.

And his public-money funding for Partygate is the subject of this article in the Graun, although it’s covered by many other media outlets if that one isn’t your cup of tea.

Entitled arseheads like Johnson really take the biscuit, don’t they?

He’s taken a million quid on the side – that’s additional to his MP salary, and has anybody actually seen him in the House of Commons lately? – but he wouldn’t dream of using any of it to fight the Partygate allegations.

He’ll happily take it from you and me instead.

That’s how they stay rich and you stay poor.

Source: Boris Johnson earns £1m in six weeks, but taxpayer gets his bill for legal fees | News | The Times

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Government lawyer advising Boris Johnson says Partygate inquiry is flawed

Not a party? This shot was taken during a Christmas quiz at Downing Street – note the tinsel around one person’s neck and the open bottle of alcoholic beverage. Johnson later said all Covid-19 rules were followed at these events – including those for which he and others were fined. Was he lying? That’s what the current inquiry is tasked with determining.

Why is a Cabinet Office lawyer advising a private individual – Boris Johnson – on Partygate?

Apparently a decision by the Commons Privileges committee, that is investigating whether Johnson misled Parliament over the Partygate scandal, that it does not have to prove that he intended to do so, to prove contempt of Parliament.

But Lord Pannick, the legal eagle hired by the government to examine the committee’s approach, said the inquiry needs to establish “that Mr Johnson intended to mislead the House [of Commons] – that is that he knew that what he told the House was incorrect”.

He added that that “the threat of contempt proceedings for unintentional mistakes would have a seriously chilling effect” on MPs.

He said the committee’s approach is inconsistent with past cases where intent was taken into account and the process would be deemed “unlawful” if it was tested in a court.

And he criticised the committee for taking evidence anonymously and said Mr Johnson should be told the detail of the case against him.

The committee’s own lawyer, former judge Sir Ernest Ryder, has already said potential witnesses may not be prepared to give evidence if their identity is made public.

The committee’s spokesperson said it will respond to the other criticisms in due course.

But the fact that Pannick was commissioned to act on Johnson’s behalf suggests that the government is still trying to interfere with Parliamentary process and has learned nothing from the results of – for example – the Owen Paterson scandal.

It seems we won’t be free of the stench of corruption around Boris Johnson – even after he has stopped being prime minister.

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Corbyn calls in the lawyers – just as This Site asked him to

What a coincidence!

The day after This Writer called for Jeremy Corbyn to take court action to stop the current Labour leadership from playing fast-and-loose with party rules to persecute him – he did just that.

Jeremy Corbyn’s solicitors have written to Labour calling for his suspension as one of the party’s MPs to be lifted, the BBC has been told.

I can’t take credit for the move – this is a tiny website with a very small readership – around 16,000 a day on average – but I think it is worth recording my gratitude to everybody who did pass my message on to Mr Corbyn, just in case.

Keir Starmer has built up a reputation, in a very short time, for conceding court cases Labour’s legal advisers say the party should win. In this instance, the opposite should apply – so I fear he’ll decide to fight.

Possibly mitigating against this is the letter to the party’s acting general secretary, David Evans (his appointment has yet to be ratified by a Labour Party conference), demanding that the Parliamentary party whip be restored to Corbyn.

According to Skwawkbox, the letter

  • condemns the ‘double jeopardy’ and ‘deliberate political interference’ of withdrawing the whip from Corbyn after he was reinstated by an NEC panel
  • makes clear that the decision of the panel was based on independent legal advice and the recommendation of Labour’s disciplinary investigative unit
  • implies that their advice was that there were no valid grounds for Corbyn’s suspension
  • confirms that the whip had been restored to Corbyn on the lifting of his suspension, making an utter mockery of Starmer’s excuse that he was ‘not restoring’ the whip rather than withdrawing it
  • makes clear that the meddling in the disciplinary outcome is exactly that kind of ‘political interference’ the EHRC has ruled unlawful
  • accuses Starmer and other right-wing MPs of smearing the NEC panel members who acted in accordance with the party’s rules and the legal advice they gave
  • says that Starmer has put NEC members in a legal bind – and that as a highly-qualified barrister he has no excuse for his ‘unconscionable’ choice
  • demands that Evans rebuke Starmer for his political interference in party processes and undermining public confidence in Labour’s disciplinary process
  • ‘requires’ Evans to immediately ‘demand’ that Starmer upholds the NEC panel’s decision and restores the whip to Corbyn

So now Starmer is well and truly caught between a rock and a hard place.

I wonder what sanctions will be carried out by the NEC members who signed the letter, if they don’t get what they demanded?

Perhaps Starmer’s decision will be made easier by the continuing rebellion of party members across the country, who continue to ignore his diktats that they should not speak up on Corbyn’s behalf or campaign for him.

This Writer is delighted to see that Bristol South CLP (I’m from that part of Brizzle) has just voted to support Corbyn:

I understand Brent Central CLP has also passed a motion demanding the restoration of the Labour Parliamentary whip to Corbyn.

And it seems another CLP has passed a motion calling on the NEC to take all steps possible to remove David Evans from office.

November 19 has been a disastrous day for Keir Starmer and his cronies.

How much worse can it get before he bows to the inevitable?

Source: Jeremy Corbyn’s lawyers challenge Labour over MP suspension – BBC News

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Former government lawyer becomes first person ever convicted of ‘upskirting’

A former lawyer for the Tory government has become the first person to be convicted of upskirting – surreptitious filming or taking photographs under an individual’s clothing without consent.

Daren Timson-Hunt was involved in Brexit negotiations as head of the EU Exit and Goods Legal team.

Daren Timson-Hunt pleaded guilty last week to “operating equipment” beneath another person’s clothing while at Embankment underground station on 1 July.

The 54-year-old followed a woman who left a Northern Line train at the station, Westminster Magistrates Court heard.

He then waited at the bottom of a flight of stairs and waited until the woman climbed to the top of the steps before pulling his phone out.

Another passenger saw Timson-Hunt hiding his phone under his leg to take a photo of the woman.

This seems to be further evidence that members of the Tory government – from the prime minister right down to employees working for one of its departments – believe the law doesn’t apply to them.

The sooner we get rid of the lot of them – and bring them all to account before the law – the better.

Source: Upskirting: Government lawyer becomes first person ever convicted under new law after underground train incident | The Independent

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Labour’s top lawyer quits – over Panorama ‘anti-Semitism’ documentary?

Gordon Nardell has quit as Labour’s top lawyer. To whom should I address my lawsuit over the party’s false anti-Semitism claims now?

That might seem a facetious question, but the circumstances of his departure suggest a grimly serious side to it, as it has been alleged that he has gone in advance of revelations about Labour’s handling of anti-Semitism allegations against party members.

Here’s The Independent:

Sources suggested Mr Nardell’s departure was linked to an upcoming episode of the BBC programme Panorama, which is said to contain further damaging allegations about antisemitism.

One Labour MP said they understood Mr Nardell had been warned that it would be impossible for him to return to his career as a barrister if he remained with Labour much longer, given the “reputational damage” he faced.

The quote in that article by a Jewish Labour Movement representative is also very interesting as it implies that Labour has protected people accused of anti-Semitism, when we know that in fact that party has witch-hunted and persecuted anybody who has even been mentioned in connection with it.

So I don’t hold out much hope for the Panorama documentary. It seems it will be criticising Labour for the wrong reasons.

You get that impression also from the fact that the Independent mentions the re-suspension of Chris Williamson as though it were a good thing.

This particular issue has now attracted the attention of leading intellectual, left-wing icon and – most importantly in this instance – Jew, Noam Chomsky. He spoke to independent journalist Matt Kennard about it:

It won’t stop the screamers because they are irrational – but it is good evidence for those of us who think before leaping to poor conclusions. Right?

EXTRA: Reports are reaching me that Mr Nardell has left Labour because he came to the end of a fixed-term contract. It would seem very strange to me if his contract was not extendable, therefore his reasons for leaving may still deserve exploration. It will all come out in the wash, I’m sure. Let’s see what happens next.

EXTRA EXTRA: According to PoliticsHome, “A Labour source said: ‘Gordon took the decision to return to his practice as a barrister.'” That seems to indicate he didn’t leave as a result of his contract ending; he left because he chose to leave, and that means we may be justified in questioning the reason. And that throws the focus back on Panorama.

Source: Labour antisemitism: Party plunged into chaos as top lawyer quits role | The Independent

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Snoopers’ Charter: Lawyers’ have been fighting to protect legal privilege

court

The article quoted below is from July. Does anybody know what happened with this?

In yet another case of lawyers vs politicians, the legal profession’s concerns about the Snoopers’ Charter are going to be debated in the House of Lords today.

The legal profession has long resisted the controversial Investigatory Powers Bill, dubbed the Snoopers’ Charter, which will allow the government to ‘snoop’ on our communications.

The fear is that the anti-terrorism legislation will end up undermining legal professional privilege (a client’s right to talk to his lawyer in confidence), something solicitors and barristers alike feel very angsty about.

Source: Snoopers’ Charter: Lawyers’ fight to protect legal privilege reaches the House of Lords – Legal Cheek

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