Illegal Immigration Bill

Illegal Migration Bill (IMB)

The IMB, currently going through Westminster, is designed to fulfil the Tories’ slogan of ‘stop the boats’. It breaches the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Even ‘Cruella’ Braverman was unable to show how it is compatible with the ECHR at the First Reading. The UK Government accepts that it may breach the right to life, the right to be free from inhumane and degrading treatment, the right not to be discriminated against and the right to a remedy. The UN High Commission on Refugees says it breaches the Refugee Convention which the UK has signed but the UKG intends to proceed and make the bill a law. It is generally believed that the IMB is the precursor to the UK withdrawing from the ECHR.

The IMB therefore has significant implications for Scotland because the ECHR was written into the Scotland Act which set up Holyrood. The Scottish Government has already stated it wishes to incorporate UN HR treaties into Scots Law and thus into a post-independence constitution. However, if the UK leaves the ECHR before independence there is nothing we can do about it under devolution. Only under independence can we  have the rights granted by the ECHR.

The Council of Europe(C of E) meets in Strasbourg but is quite separate from the EU. It was founded in 1949 in order to uphold human rights, democracy and the rule of law in Europe. It had 46 members including the UK. It has the power to suspend and even exclude members. If the UK proceeds with the IMB and withdraws from the ECHR it would very possibly face at least suspension and maybe exclusion.

The UK has been here before. In the 1990s the Scotland-UN Committee got an applicant to ask the C of E if all existing members met the democratic standards which new applicants had to meet before being admitted. Fair enough said the C of E. The UK was given a D-minus. The analysis described the UK as having one of the most primitive democracies in Europe. Its FPTP voting system gives total power to the largest minority and disenfranchises the majority of voters. A party can win total power on as little as 34% of the vote; an individual MP can be elected with as little as 27% of the constituency vote. In addition there was the House of Lords with hereditary peers, hardly in keeping with modern democracy. The analysis then said that Scotland, as part of the UK union, experienced less democracy than the USSR’s satellite states under communist rule. As a result, the UK would not qualify if it was a new applicant. The UKG was told to fix its democracy or face expulsion.

So what happened?  The Blair Government which came to power in 1997 was stung and forced to respond. All the boasts about ‘the Mother of all Parliaments’ and ‘we gave democracy to the world’, yet the report card said D-minus. The hereditary element in the H of L was reduced but not abolished and Church of Eng. bishops continued to sit. PR for Westminster was rejected, and still is. In 2011 the Tory-LibDem coalition did hold a referendum on a new voting system, but not PR. Instead we were offered the Alternative Vote system which nobody wanted as it made so little improvement on FPTP and not surprisingly it was turned down by almost 68% of those voting (42% of those eligible voted). Scotland was offered a referendum to see if a) we wanted a parliament and b) if we wanted it to have tax raising powers and voted convincingly in favour of both. The Scotland Act followed and Holyrood was set up but with very limited powers. (Blair likened it to a parish council!) The C of E was not that impressed either which is one reason why the 2014 Referendum was conceded after the SNP won an overall majority at Holyrood; something that was never supposed to happen. As we know, a majority of Scots voted Yes but the overall electorate of Scotland decided not to take the opportunity to become a normal, self-governing nation. The C of E had to accept that decision.

Andrew Fraser
20/03/2023