NORTHERN IRELAND Human Rights Commission

A body with the UN 'A' designation as a top-level human rights organisation. January 2021 saw a combined formal cpmplaint from over 90 NGOs that the process and selection of 6 new commissioners (several have NI police backgrounds) will reduce the status of the NIHRC. Guardian.

NORTHERN IRELAND Education

GREAT OPINION PIECE WRITTEN BY A STUDENT FRUSTRATED OVER THE FOOT-DRAGGING ON THE LEGAL COMMITMENT TO FOSTER INTEGRATED SCHOOLING

Guardian.

NI SCHOOLS SUED FOR RELIGIOUS INDOCTRINATION (News Letter, Nov 2021)

The big issues in NI education are:

- the role of the church and segregation on religious lines (the Catholic church runs many schools, though they are state-funded, while many 'state' schools are largely Protestant - with religious assemblies but no Protestant church involvement); integrated schools with no religious demographic are STILL a small majority

- selection/grammar schools. NI children mostly have to sit entry exams aged 11 (the 'eleven-plus') in order to get into a grammar school. Those who fail will have access to a narrower range of academic subjects and sit foundation GCSEs, maximum grade C/5. SDLP, Alliance, SF all oppose selection by test.

Other issues:

- the History syllabus is always going to be contested

- likewise the texts/writers chosen for the English/Literature syllabus

- Citizenship/PSE become controversial in NI too, with the ultra-conservative DUP plus Catholic church opposed to teaching elements of basic sexual and reproductive health 

- the status of Irish language, which is traditionally compulsory in Catholic schools but not taught in state schools

MOMENTUM BEHIND INTEGRATED AS 69% SUPPORT END TO RELIGIOUSLY SEGREGATED SCHOOLS

Guardian article shows that behind the negative headlines a more integrated NI is emerging.

THE UK PICTURE - 20%!!!!

I usually avoid Fiona Millar's opinion pieces, but there's a statistic in there that was an eye opener to me - a full '20% of pupils in England feel the impact of the 11-plus tests'.

JANUARY 2021: ROW OVER 11+ COVID CANCELLATIONS

This is brewing into a big row, with the DUP blocking attempts by SF, SDLP and Alliance to order the cancellation of all of these, as in this BBC article (here's another opinion piece on the 11+ exam from Belfast Telegraph, including its history). Since my schooldays an already questionable system has intensified - most kids now sit multiple tests in formal exam conditions from two exam boards on multiple Saturdays, and pay for the privilege of this extreme stress and life-changing judgement of young children. 

My memory of this is the whole final year of primary school being centred on preparing for this test - and being alone in my circle of friends in passing it, meaning we went to different secondary schools. As with A-Level exams (as distinct from coursework, which the Con government/Michael Gove have sought to undermine and minimise) there is a clear link between social class and success, with many middle-class parents paying for additional private tuition outside of school.

I credit my younger sister HB here for briefing me on how it works today - but also note that I get a lot of useful stories and updates through my Google news feed: if you open the Google app and look down you'll have a customisable news feed.

This came through that news feed - an article about (non-sectarian) street/wall art/murals in Belfast, known for the Provo/UVF displays but actually now home to increasing art displays. That development certainly struck me on my last pre-covid stay in Belfast. 

Above - two images from July 2019 trip to show that, 11+ notwithstanding, there is social change in NI. Non-sectarian public art is flourishing while the traditional boundary marking red/white/blue or green/white/orange kerbstone painting is joined by rainbow kerbs marking a recognised LGBT+ corner. Teaching anything that promotes non-binary or non-hetero as normal remains highly contentious in the NI schooling system decades after Thatcher's Clause 28 was ditched by PM John Major.

NI GFA CHALLENGES Irish Language and Ulster-Scots

A prominent loyalist claims in January 2021 that the BBC NI are trolling him by using a picture of a Belfast street sign in English and Irish (the Irish is similar to his surname).

Just a sign of how this issue, like so much in NI, isn't really fully resolved notwithstanding the deal struck in January 2020 to get Stormont up again.

The DUP are making noises about how upset they are at a policy which means that if any one resident or local councillor objects to an application for Irish (or Ulster-Scots!) street signage, 'just' 15% of local residents can approve it. That may be a low number, but activating that number isn't necessarily so easy! See Belfast Telegraph.

You can read more in an RTE article shortly after the 2020 deal was struck:

The Stormont proposals for legal protection for the Irish language in Northern Ireland are significant because they amount to the first piece of domestic legislation recognising the language north of the border. Irish is mentioned in general terms in the Good Friday Agreement and is also protected under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, but campaigners have long fought for more specific and robust legal provisions at local level.

While recognising the historic advance represented by the agreement, campaign groups such as An Dream Dearg and Conradh na Gaeilge are nonetheless disappointed that the deal covers broader linguistic and identity issues and does not amount to a standalone Irish language act. This stands in contrast with legislation for Irish in the Republic, as well as acts covering Welsh and Scottish Gaelic. However, the legacy of conflict in Northern Ireland meant a similar approach was unlikely to work. 

The Wiki is also useful:

On 11 January 2020, Sinn Féin and the DUP re-entered devolved government under the New Decade, New Approach agreement with DUP leader Arlene Foster appointed Northern Ireland's first minister, and Sinn Féin's Michelle O'Neill appointed deputy first minister.[21] As part of the agreement, there will be no standalone Irish Language Act, but the Northern Ireland Act 1998 will be amended and policies implemented to:

grant official status to both the Irish language and Ulster Scots in Northern Ireland;[22]

establish the post of Irish Language Commissioner to "recognise, support, protect and enhance the development of the Irish language in Northern Ireland" as part of a new Office of Identity and Cultural Expression (alongside an Ulster Scots/Ulster British Commissioner);[6]

introduce sliding-scale "language standards", a similar approach to that taken for the Welsh language in Wales, although they are subject to veto by the First Minister or deputy First Minister;[23]

repeal a 1737 ban on the use of Irish in Northern Ireland's courts;[6]

allow members of the Northern Ireland Assembly to speak in Irish or Ulster Scots, with simultaneous translation for non-speakers,[24] and

establish a central translation unit within the Northern Ireland government.[24]

NI New Decade New Approach Jan 2020

 

WILL DEAL COLLAPSE OVER DUP BLOCK ON LANGUAGES ACT?

The DUP getting angry at the idea of the British government legislating is not new - but Sinn Fein asking a Tory government to use the Commons to pass an Irish Languages Act, as agreed under the 2020 deal to revive the Assembly ... that's pretty weird! See June 2021 Guardian report.

MAY 2021 REVIEW - 500 DAYS LATER...

See BTele.

So, having broken records for non-governance, the DUP and SF finally brokered a deal to relaunch the Assembly in December 2019, signed and finalised in Jan 2020. SF had been insisting on DUP resignations in the light of the Cash For Ash scandal, and made an Irish Language Act their absolute red-line.

The DUP had been set to agree to a language act years before ... only to get a strong message from loyalists that this would be unacceptable and they would lose much of their support base. 

The smart solution - SF quietly dropped the resignation insistence and the DUP agreed to a bill that would give Irish ... AND Ulster-Scots legal parity!

While the Assembly remained shuttered (it requires the support of a portion of both unionist and nationalist blocs to function: it is a power-sharing executive!) the UK gov passed acts to legalise gay marriage and abortion in NI - to the fury of the DUP, who attempted to reopen Stormont early to block this. The more left-wing Sinn Fein blocked that attempt.

Here are some articles to read more:

Official UK gov paper.

BBC summary Jan 4th; and a later more detailed look (Jan 10th).

How the Daily Mail covered it.

A critical opinion piece (Suzanne Breen) in the Belfast Telegraph + an analysis piece.

The Wiki!!!

Guardian editorial (opinion piece); background on how the deal was made; analysis of priorities for the restored Assembly.

Here's a video from the Assembly itself:

Here's a BBC Newsnight video

...

Democracy v dictatorship

How democratic is Britain when the right to protest is being greatly cut? Guardian Dec 2020 opinion piece.

SUPREME COURT is it's independence under threat?

The UK Supreme Court came into being through the Blair government's reforms of the House of Lords. Before then, the Law Lords sat in the upper house to give a final say on legal issues, after they were a separate institution, split off from the legislature.

This made the court system closer to the US model, where the Supreme Court forms part of the separation of powers between a bicameral house, elected president, state powers and the court. But ... obviously without the intense partisan element that we see there, most recently with the Trumpian packing of the court with 3 new conservative judges (or justices) despite having blocked Obama from appointing one a year before his second term ended.

Then again ... despite the right-wing press fury at the UK Supreme Court blocking Johnson's attempt to prorogue Parliament to force through a no-deal Brexit without a vote, the legal system is notoriously narrow in its demographics. The legal system is not representative of the ethnic or social class mix of the UK.

In November 2020, the Tory government launched proposals to reform the Supreme Court - to effectively scrap it. This would start with a renaming, plus making it multiple themed courts, all reducing its status. Labour critics argue this is a direct reaction to Conservative fury (at least on the Brexiteer side - former Tory Attorney General Dominic Grieve led parliamentary efforts to resist Johnson's attempt, and lost the whip) at the Court's decision on prorogation.

Whether those critics are right or not about the motivation, such a move would reduce the status of the Court at a time when it and the Speakership have emerged as key counterbalances to the executive, with the legislature struggling to fulfil its constitutional role of holding the executive to account.

Are unelected judges any better or more democratic than unelected peers? That is another way to look at the Court. 

Here's a Nov 2020 article from the Guardian on those government reform plans. The bias is evident in the prominence given to the Labour critics rather than the Tory government; I'd equally expect the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg to be more prominently featured in a right-wing paper's coverage. This appears to be what The Telegraph (source of The Guardian's report) did (it's behind a paywall) - here's the start of the Guardian article:

Government-backed plans to reduce the size of the supreme court and rename it have been condemned by Labour as an assault on the independence of the judiciary.

The proposals, said to be under ministerial discussion, are supposedly aimed at curtailing the court’s ability to become involved in constitutional issues such as last year’s parliamentary prorogation case, which ended in a resounding defeat for Boris Johnson.

The report in the Sunday Telegraph said Jacob Rees-Mogg, leader of the Commons, had privately accused the court of a “constitutional coup” after the justices unanimously ruled that the government’s attempt to prorogue parliament to prevent it debating Brexit was illegal.

...

The proposals resemble a policy paper published by the thinktank Policy Exchange in July entitled Reforming the Supreme Court. That also suggested replacing the supreme court with an “upper court of appeal” and having specially selected panels for separate cases.

...

The press showed the usual split on the prorogue ruling; the Mail took things quite far (see Gdn analysis + Wiki)

JUNE 2021 - MPs/PEERS TAKE PM TO COURT OVER RUSSIA EKECTION INTERFERENCE REPORT

WOW!!! MPs and peers are taking the PM to court over his treatment of a report into Russian links. The Trump parallels grow stronger. Evening Standard

DEC 2020

JOHNSON TAKES REVENGE ON SUPREME COURT, REMOVES ITS POWER TO BLOCK PROROGATION. UNCODIFIED CONSTITUTION...

Guardian. 

The most controversial change is an attempt to bar the courts from ruling on the powers of the government to dissolve parliament. The move will be seen as a direct retaliation against the supreme court, which humiliated Johnson last year after it ruled that his prorogation of parliament at a key point in the Brexit talks was unlawful.

The Cabinet Office confirmed the legislation would “reaffirm the longstanding position that the prerogative powers are not reviewable by courts, providing legal clarity”.

Dr Jessica Garland, director of policy and research at the Electoral Reform Society said the government should be making efforts to decentralise power, rather than reclaim it. “The UK already has one of the most centralised political systems amongst modern democracies so any plans to give our already dominant executive more powers should be carefully scrutinised and treated with caution,” she said.

“Any reforms to our politics should be made with the view of moving powers away from the centre, which already has significant control over the Commons and the Lords, which the Prime Minister can pack with appointees at will.

...

4 KEY POLICY AREAS: immigration

THE 4 POLICY AREAS TO TRACK

Education

Environment

Economy

Immigration

Keep up to date notes on the major NI (SDLP, Sinn Fein, Alliance, UUP, DUP) and UK (Lab, Tory, Lib Dem) parties policies on these specific areas.

COURTS RULE HOME OFFICE ACTING ILLEGALLY AGAIN. SECRET NEW POLICY?

Guardian.

HOME SECRETARY TO BLOCK VISAS FOR COUNTRIES REFUSING TO ACCEPT RETURNED IMMIGRANTS

Guardian

UK THREATENS TO SEND IMMIGRANTS BACK TO EU COUNTRY THEY TRAVELLED FROM ... BUT THAT BREAKS INTERNATIONAL LAW + NO EU NATION WILL ACCEPT THEM (BBC)

Note also the return to a quota system; specific number limit/target which Blair brought in and Tories have kept repeating in manifestoes despite consistent failure to meet their targets.

UK insist that the first safe country a migrant reaches must be where they claim asylum.

UK PULLS OUT OF MEDITERRANEAN RESCUE SHIP SCHEME (Guardian)

There have been other such policies which lead to international condemnation: initially refusing to take in refugees from Calais (750 children were eventually taken in)

The left-wing v right-wing split on this is very simple, and very clearly reflected in newspaper coverage too. The 'hostile environment' that Theresa May brought in when Home Secretary (before she was PM), to make things as tough as possible for asylum seekers to put them off from coming here, is a big, ongoing story.

The UK government has repeatedly been found guilty of illegal practices linked to this, notably their deportations of many of the Windrush generation of Carribbean immigrants originally invited here

LEFT-WING

Broadly supportive of the right of asylum seekers to claim refuge in the UK

Support the right of foreign family members of immigrants to join them in the UK

Emphasize the positive economic benefit of immigrants

Celebrate multiculturalism as another positive impact

Oppose integration requirements like compulsory English and citizenship (knowledge, attitudes)

- reject the extent (if not the general need) of police/secret service scrutiny of Muslim communities for extremists/terrorists

Oppose immigration limits or links to income

- BUT concerned about economic migration from eastern European migrants undermining wage levels and working conditions

- BUT former leader Ed Miliband is typical of more 'centrist' Labour leaders (like Starmer???) with his notorious Controls on Immigration mug (condemned by the left-winger Diane Abbott)

-- Labour strategists argue they need a tougher line on immigration to win popular support, as demonstrated by the Brexit defeat

RIGHT-WING

Seek to restrict and undermine rights under international law to claim asylum in the UK

- aggressive policy to stop migrants from crossing UK borders (especially from Calais, France)

- restrict asylum seekers' right to work OR claim benefits OR use public services (especially healthcare: NHS)

- opposed EU efforts to divide Syrian asylum seekers through national quotas

- work with authoritarian regimes like Erdigan in Turkey to prevent migrants from reaching the EU

Opposed to allowing family members of legal immigrants to join them in UK

Emphasis on immigrants as an economic drain, putting strain on public services (schools, NHS)

See multiculturalism as wrong and harmful expression of political correctness, celebrate and promote a notional traditional British identity

Support compulsory integration measures like English lessons (oppose use of translators as waste of public money) and citizenship tests

- particularly concerned about the separatism/failure to integrate or accept/adopt British values of Muslim communities

- linked to this, strong police/secret service powers to monitor these communities for extremists or terrorists

Support annual limits on immigration (though consistently fail to meet these targets)

- much controversy over how this impacts the NHS, farming, universities and the sporting/cultural sectors

- favour income/wealth tests

NEWS STORIES 2021

TORIES LOVE IMMIGRATION!

When immigration matches up to other nationalist policies, in this case trying to look strong against China, even the most anti-immigration party can suddenly find some enthusiasm. PM Johnson has announced a programme to welcome potentially 10s of 1000s Hong Kong citizens, knowing this will greatly antagonise China - but please America in doing so. Guardian.

NEWS STORIES 2020

DECEMBER

PRITI PATEL DISMISSES LETTER BY 80 BLACK CRITICS CALLING FOR JAMAICA DEPORTATION FLIGHT CANCELLATION 'DO-GOODING CELEBRITIES'

IMMIGRATION LAWYERS REPORT MORE DEATH THREATS

Guardian details on the flights, campaign letters, death threats and Labour's opposition - though very low profile. Starmer isn't making this an issue, possibly further evidence that he's avoiding anything that seems clearly left-wing and would attract flak from the press. He's planning not even to vote against any Brexit deal, which is strongly linked to anti-immigration rhetoric and sentiment, though may be forced to drop this approach with a huge rebellion likely.

You can read the utterly different Daily Mail report, which mocks "leftie lawyers", here.

NOV

EHRC DECLARES HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT ILLEGAL

Yet another blow for the Tory tough stance on immigration. 

The Home Office broke equalities law when it introduced its hostile environment immigration measures, a critical report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has concluded.

The department now has a legal duty to review these policies to ensure they are not racially discriminatory, and that they comply with equalities legislation, the rights body announced. 

In the latest damning report on the Home Office’s record in relation to its hostile environment policies and the Windrush scandal, the EHRC study detected “a lack of commitment” within the Home Office to the importance of equality.

The report found “there was a narrow focus on delivering the political commitment of reducing immigration, and a culture where equality was not seen as important. Identifying risks to equality was therefore not encouraged.”

A series of hostile environment policies were introduced by Theresa May from 2012 during a drive to bring down net migration; the measures made it harder for people without documentation proving their right to be in the UK to get jobs, rent properties, access healthcare and open bank accounts. Large numbers of people who had the right to live in the UK, but no documentation, were adversely affected by the policies.

(Guardian).

HOME SECRETARY FOUND GUILTY BY COURTS OF IGNORING OFFICIAL POLICY

Priti Patel is a very controversial Home Secretary, previously sacked for secret meetings with Israeli officials, facing multiple accusations of bullying, repeatedly found guilty by the courts of breaching migrants' rights.

Equally true, she is a very popular figure on the right with her tough stance on immigration and asylum seekers, and her condemnations of 'lefty lawyers' who defend migrant rights (despite the legal profession warning about death threats that this caused).

So, this is far from the first ruling against her. She was ordered to stop the deportation of 3 asylum seekers. Guardian: The deportation of hundreds of asylum seekers who arrived in the UK on small boats could be halted after a judge ruled that the home secretary was departing from her own policy on identifying victims of trafficking.

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