A Very British Bunch of Rights – the Revenge of the Buffer
by Andrew Bousfield

It is with muted and slow-handed applause that David Cameron has thrown out his new sugar-coated message to the pulsing British nation. The terrorism morass can be dealt with if we all have a British rule-book, a British rights document, that navigates our way through the cavernous ravines. If only the British could approach these problems in a British way, then those rights neurotics in Strasbourg would stop thwarting our every move against the Islamic demon within.

‘All the greatest human rights document have been etched in the blood-spattered marks of revolutionary ideals’

Cameron is to redraft a British human rights document, to replace the tired European Convention on Human Rights. This new document is to be bubblingly British, a salvo to the rest of the world, a reasoned way of going about business. To the suspicious observer it’s another initiative emanating from the swarthy pit of the Notting Hill set: those of the fold-away wind turbine, the bicycle and chauffeur, those who clean their ethical conscience with organic vegetables. Is that fair? Should this new empire of reason be dismissed so readily?

David Cameron is trying to tackle on the of the modern quandaries of politics: how to balance the collective security of the nation (a national, not human right) against the individualistic entitlements of those who may seek to destroy the nation (a human right). It is admirable that a Committee is about to produce a venerable rights document with this in mind, but it is unlikely to work for the following reasons.

Firstly, a brief look at history shows that all the greatest human rights document have been etched in the blood-spattered marks of revolutionary ideals. The French Declaration of the Rights of Man saw the light amidst the neck-splitting excesses of the guillotine. The American Declaration was a direct salvo against the brain-numbing conformism of British society, and was engraved with the ideals of a new nation. The British, immune to such frivolous excitement of the masses, remained cold towards the ideas of right, Bentham notoriously branding them “nonsense on stilts”. Nevertheless, in the wake of Hitler’s atrocities, the British thought it a good idea to draft the Germans a Basic Law, and the European Convention on Human Rights, in order to quell the continentals. It was felt that ‘rights’ of the excluded, and the ‘rights’ of those who may be trodden on by the majority, would help to prevent another slide into a Jew-hating tyranny.

So, essentially ‘rights’ usually follow a bloodbath, or at least a tumultuous political event in which a new nation is forged in the fire of new ideals. None of this appears to be happening in Britain at the moment. Rather, our new ‘British’ rights document will be the product of a Committee, the ponderings of the British Buffer. In essence, something quintessentially British, reasoned, tasteless, and pointless. You would do better going down the local Golf Club, or exclusive local drinking club, and rounding up a bunch of punters to name the ‘rights’.

‘Any human rights standards attempt to curtail the gob-smacking, evil-raising spectre of mob justice.’

Secondly, the whole exercise is an attempt to drink the golden nectar of power, serve dup by the media mogul. On May 14th, the News of the World, the most boisterous mouthpiece for Rupert Murdoch, threw out an unmistakeable message. It called the the Human Rights Act “legal lunacy” and called for it to be scrapped. There was a direct call to Cameron: any successor to Blair should not backslide on the abolition of the Act. Against this background, it is easy to see that Mr Cameron’s initiative is nothing but an attempt to respond to the newspaper’s clamours.

There is a deeper trend here. Politicians and media moguls are strange bedfellows, but their coupling is essential. Any human rights standards attempt to curtail the gob-smacking, evil-raising spectre of mob justice. It is the pre-commitment strategy of a democracy to protect those without a voice from the blood-curdling cries of the majority (“lock them up”). Cameron is more than happy to bow to the mob, and the media, if he can get his hands on the strings of power.

Set the old buffers to work drafting some very British rights. Legally, it will make little difference since we will still be bound by the European Convention. But Cameron’s initiative sends an unmistakeable message both to the baying mob and the circumspect media mogul: I’m listening, and here’s the initiative that shows I’m listening. All in a good day’s PR, sugar coat a meaningless message, and prescribe to the population.