To say the UK government has been busy in the last week would be a classic British understatement. It rammed four distinct pieces of legislation through parliament that will seriously undermine people’s rights.
The government’s assaults on civil liberties and the institutions that safeguard them, combined with its inability to confront a rising cost-of-living problem, provide a bleak picture for human rights protection in the UK.
The Nationality and Borders Bill essentially demolishes the United Kingdom’s asylum and refugee law framework, criminalizes asylum seekers, establishes a fundamentally discriminatory structure, and creates the legal basis for pushbacks and offshore refugee processing. It also facilitates the removal of citizenship.
The Police, Crime, Sentencing, and Courts Bill puts additional limitations on peaceful demonstration, raises protest-related fines and punishments, and extends police powers to crack down on “unauthorized encampments,” potentially increasing prejudice against Traveller, Roma, and Gypsy people.
The Elections Bill’s ambitions to impose voter identification requirements, which pose a serious danger of disenfranchisement based on socioeconomic position, color, and ethnicity, will move forward without a clear evidence of how the additional powers are appropriate, or even essential. The bill also grants the government the authority to establish the priorities of the Electoral Commission, the elections monitor, raising concerns about its independence.
New provisions in the Judicial Review and Courts Bill limit the scope to which those who believe their rights are being violated by immigration or social security decisions can challenge them in court.
Meanwhile, living expenses are skyrocketing, and food banks are reporting record levels of increasing need for assistance. Simultaneously, rather than taking the chance to address people’s entitlement to an appropriate quality of life, the Chancellor dismissed the notion of further help for families dealing with energy prices as “silly” in a talk organized by a prominent parents’ organisation.
It’s difficult to overestimate the extent of the bills’ impact. All four laws are expected to become law over the next several days. In each case, legislative opposition and civil society mobilization would have resulted in considerably worse consequences.
Consider how much brighter the prospects would be if the government devoted half as much energy and legislative effort to raising living standards and rights safeguards as it has to weakening them.
