Sadly I suspect the Conservatives in the UK have grasped the problem of the Left Lawfare Industrial Complex and regime change only too well - probably ever since Blair. Indeed David Cameron claimed to be the heir to Blair.
I doubt that the Conservatives were too daft to realise what was going on, they embraced it. Theresa May rapidly succumbed to the ideas of the Civil Service and Boris Johnson and Liz Truss were too uppity to be allowed to risk 'the Regime'. Rishi Sunak turned out to be a place-holder until the next General Election. This allowed the Labour Party plenty of time to consolidate their position ready to take over.
You might observe wryly that Labour don't know what to do with political power now that they have it - they may be cultured by the Left Lawfare Industrial Complex but this is not the whole of politics.
We're going to need a Disruptor to challenge the Left Lawfare Industrial Complex (similar to Trump or Milei) but they will be going up against heavily fortified emplacements. Still, the first advance (Brexit) has happened, even though it has currently stalled.
In a sense Labour don't need to do anything with political power - they're essentially the political wing of the Blob. By doing nothing they are achieving the Blob's objectives.
Rather than getting involved in grubby lawfare, perhaps the Right should focus on getting rid of the foundations on which it depends, namely (but not exclusively) the Human Rights Act and Climate Change Act.
Let’s get judges back to judging facts in the context of well defined offences rather than applying nebulous, but invariably left leaning, principles which require political judgement.
I’m left not understanding who? and why? ‘They’ are described as ‘the left’, and the sleepy dopey ones, among whom I number, I guess, are the centrists and soft-to-hard right. But who is this ‘left’? It’s not the communist party and it’s not the trade unions. It’s not helping the average worker and I can’t imagine that it being masterminded by tourists from Ghana, so who and why?
Yes, I conceded 'the left' may be the wrong way of putting it. It's really a confluence of a great many different interests all pointing in the same direction.
To answer my own question (having watched this https://youtu.be/CxEeYSusehc?si=HiqaD3-IT9VAqwGz and thought about it) Who = very arrogant people (elites) who think that the reason the world is crap is that it is filled with idiots who don’t behave in an optimal way (due mainly to their stupidity). Why = they (those elites) really believe the world would be a better place if they were given more and more power to organise it along their utopian lines. What I needed to understand was the sincere motive (because most people can only be motivated by good). Of course, once the gravy train gets going, you get all the perverse incentives and corruption as well. It does sound very like communism at base…rational, progressive and wrong.
During the space race the Soviet Union spent more money funding 'peace' organisations in the West than the USA spent going to the Moon. This has created a vast network of organisations who exist solely to destroy the West, and who are funded by each wave of our enemies.
There are some immense global interests that would love to see the nation-state as such weakened and, if possibly, eventually destroyed. This is for essentially the same reasons that those people rejoice in the disintegration of nations such as Iraq, Libya, and Syria - and would go crazy with joy if the same thing could happen to Russia. It's all to do with resources, and how easy and cheap it is to plunder them.
Absolutely. Look back to the so-called New International Economic Order and Kissinger's plan to win over the South so that they wouldn't be suspicious of the North, but with the intention of making them, in an underhand way, dependent on the North.
How would Badenoch's proposed immigration reforms affect this (or be frustrated by it)? IE can a new government change such an embedded culture just by changing some policies, or would there need to be something more fundamental taking place - like taking a Musk USAID approach to the Home Office? Also, didn't one of the victims of the rape gangs sue their attacker and win? I would love to see a class action against the British state for failing to address the problem.
One victim did sue her attacker but this doesn't address state complicity. What you describe certainly needs to happen.
Regarding the immigration reforms - in the end what is needed in the field of immigration law is very clear, simple rules determining who can be a British national, who can have leave to remain, and who can stay for a limited period. What we have a is a vastly complex web of rules that can be gamed ad naueseum. Future posts will address this.
The answer is that Badenoch's "reforms" are timid and wouldn't make any difference. It seems that whatever her own personal qualities, she is hamstrung by being leader of the Conservative (sic) Party. Of course her own status as effectively an immigrant (born in Britain but raised in Nigeria) also makes it hard for her to challenge immigration.
The Conservatives have been promising to rein in immigration at every election since 2010, and once elected have increased it substantially every time. Why would anyone trust them again?
"Victory belongs to the most persevering," said Napoleon Bonaparte, who persevered but was defeated and died in exile. 😉
You are right about lawfare, and great work connecting all those dots.
What needs to be done in Britain is clear: the Human Rights Act needs to be repealed and Britain needs to withdraw from the ECHR.
So why don't the Establishment Right propose this?
As in the rest of Europe, the Establishment Right has been taken over by careerist hacks who are far too cowardly to take on the Leftist activists by doing what needs to be done. However a new wind is blowing both here and across Europe. This is not just a US phenomenon. New more robust parties of the Right are taking over in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary and elsewhere.
The sooner the old Establishment Right parties properly disappear or are absorbed in the new ones, the sooner we can get these issues sorted out.
The Left only engage in this lawfare (which is expensive, time-consuming and not always effective) because they know they cannot win in the democratic political arena. You don't need to wage legal cases to stop the human rights nonsense. You just need to change the law and face down the Leftist whingeing that results.
It's genuinely more complicated, sadly, than just withdrawing from the ECHR. There are good reasons why this hasn't happened. More likely I think is that a new European consensus results in amendments to the Convention.
Both the Good Friday Agreement and the Windsor Framework are predicated on ongoing commitment to the ECHR rights, but also courts have been busily entrenching a lot of the rights into UK law anyway. 'Leaving' the ECHR is a vexed matter - it can't really just be done with a stroke of the pen. (Or, it could, and completely collapse the political situation in Northern Ireland.)
Fair enough - there are two options to deal with the Good Friday Agreement: you could, as you put it, decide to completely collapse the political situation in Northern Ireland. Or you could pass an Act declaring that the ECHR does not apply in the UK apart from Northern Ireland. The Human Rights Act could definitely be easily repealed, leaving the ECHR as just a treaty agreement.
I'm not sure that the Windsor Framework actually mentions the ECHR, but I could be mistaken on that.
This whole issue was caused in the first place by an Establishment attempt to fudge the issue of whether Northern Ireland is part of the UK or not!
As far as entrenchment of the rights into UK law is concerned, I'm sure you are right but the courts would definitely get the political message if we repealed the HR Act and left the ECHR. Court decisions on these matters (and many others) are much more political than lawyers claim them to be. They are also much more easily influenced by the political environment than is believed by those who imagine the law to be purely dictated by documents and rules.
The problem is that if the ECHR only applies in Northern Ireland you end up with a different immigration regime there, which means in effect a hard border between NI and GB, which means massive kick-off.
Progressive lawfare is the biggest untold 'politics' story of of recent decades....held nicely out of focus by the great Politics-as-Gladitorial-Election-Contest entertainment industry and its useful-idiot commentariat punditry. This City Journal article on it is well worth a read: https://www.city-journal.org/article/what-criminologists-dont-say-and-why# Brief excerpt:
"....Evidence of the liberal tilt in criminology is widespread. Surveys show a 30:1 ratio of liberals to conservatives within the field, a spread comparable with that in other social sciences."
Yes, it's not quite that bad in Law as it retains a strong link to commercial practice, but still bad. I wouldn't be surprised if you told me the left-right voting ratio among legal academics in the UK is 9:1.
I'm 2/3 through, but must stop to say: wonderful, thank you. I believe The Unity Project must have scrolled before Charlotte Gill's horrified eyeballs. I am not so surprised by the yooman rights stuff as I am by the outfits that have charitable status.
Good article - yes its a knife fight and there are dozens, maybe hundreds of Leftists lawfare cases like this - here is a quote from a recent Fabian paper - they intend to make their changes irreversible and beyond the reach of the democratic process:
"In particular, creating more dispersed centres of power within the public sector and stronger partnerships involving businesses, unions and the third sector will make it harder for the right to unpick progress in the future.."
I don't know, but I imagine that the US Constitution's explicit prohibition of "cruel and unusual punishment" has some antecedent in common law. The net effect is that sentences can generally only get milder over time, and common sense remedies like castration of serial rapists and pedophiles that might reduce recidivism and have a deterrent effect have no real chance of implementation. Any thoughts?
Yes. The expansion has come because Article 3 of the ECHR includes 'treatment' as well as punishment. BPB was not being 'punished' by not having access to public funds. The idea that it is treatment leading to her destitution, which is inhuman and degrading. Regarding punishment, the important case is Tyrer v UK, from the 1970s, where the court held that corporal punishment is intrinsically degrading.
describing DOGE's gutting of USAID author/journalist Patrick Lawrence mentions how it has become an aid agency that long ago succumbed to ideology and corruption, a decline that became visible during the Reagan years "...and the birthing of the straight-out malevolent National Endowment for Democracy, a C.I.A. op in very thin disguise...." - https://www.unz.com/plawrence/musk-the-myth-of-usaid/
This is neither nor there perhaps but it seems like we’ve allowed leftists to seize control of our institutions, infuse “white guilt” into them, and turn institutional power against the people. They intimidate and terrorize us all with their “hate speech” laws, cancel culture, and endless nagging and backstabbing. The situation is intolerable.
Sadly I suspect the Conservatives in the UK have grasped the problem of the Left Lawfare Industrial Complex and regime change only too well - probably ever since Blair. Indeed David Cameron claimed to be the heir to Blair.
I doubt that the Conservatives were too daft to realise what was going on, they embraced it. Theresa May rapidly succumbed to the ideas of the Civil Service and Boris Johnson and Liz Truss were too uppity to be allowed to risk 'the Regime'. Rishi Sunak turned out to be a place-holder until the next General Election. This allowed the Labour Party plenty of time to consolidate their position ready to take over.
You might observe wryly that Labour don't know what to do with political power now that they have it - they may be cultured by the Left Lawfare Industrial Complex but this is not the whole of politics.
We're going to need a Disruptor to challenge the Left Lawfare Industrial Complex (similar to Trump or Milei) but they will be going up against heavily fortified emplacements. Still, the first advance (Brexit) has happened, even though it has currently stalled.
In a sense Labour don't need to do anything with political power - they're essentially the political wing of the Blob. By doing nothing they are achieving the Blob's objectives.
And, note, the Blob is not left wing, but very very right wing.
Rather than getting involved in grubby lawfare, perhaps the Right should focus on getting rid of the foundations on which it depends, namely (but not exclusively) the Human Rights Act and Climate Change Act.
Let’s get judges back to judging facts in the context of well defined offences rather than applying nebulous, but invariably left leaning, principles which require political judgement.
I’m left not understanding who? and why? ‘They’ are described as ‘the left’, and the sleepy dopey ones, among whom I number, I guess, are the centrists and soft-to-hard right. But who is this ‘left’? It’s not the communist party and it’s not the trade unions. It’s not helping the average worker and I can’t imagine that it being masterminded by tourists from Ghana, so who and why?
Yes, I conceded 'the left' may be the wrong way of putting it. It's really a confluence of a great many different interests all pointing in the same direction.
To answer my own question (having watched this https://youtu.be/CxEeYSusehc?si=HiqaD3-IT9VAqwGz and thought about it) Who = very arrogant people (elites) who think that the reason the world is crap is that it is filled with idiots who don’t behave in an optimal way (due mainly to their stupidity). Why = they (those elites) really believe the world would be a better place if they were given more and more power to organise it along their utopian lines. What I needed to understand was the sincere motive (because most people can only be motivated by good). Of course, once the gravy train gets going, you get all the perverse incentives and corruption as well. It does sound very like communism at base…rational, progressive and wrong.
During the space race the Soviet Union spent more money funding 'peace' organisations in the West than the USA spent going to the Moon. This has created a vast network of organisations who exist solely to destroy the West, and who are funded by each wave of our enemies.
There are some immense global interests that would love to see the nation-state as such weakened and, if possibly, eventually destroyed. This is for essentially the same reasons that those people rejoice in the disintegration of nations such as Iraq, Libya, and Syria - and would go crazy with joy if the same thing could happen to Russia. It's all to do with resources, and how easy and cheap it is to plunder them.
Absolutely. Look back to the so-called New International Economic Order and Kissinger's plan to win over the South so that they wouldn't be suspicious of the North, but with the intention of making them, in an underhand way, dependent on the North.
How would Badenoch's proposed immigration reforms affect this (or be frustrated by it)? IE can a new government change such an embedded culture just by changing some policies, or would there need to be something more fundamental taking place - like taking a Musk USAID approach to the Home Office? Also, didn't one of the victims of the rape gangs sue their attacker and win? I would love to see a class action against the British state for failing to address the problem.
One victim did sue her attacker but this doesn't address state complicity. What you describe certainly needs to happen.
Regarding the immigration reforms - in the end what is needed in the field of immigration law is very clear, simple rules determining who can be a British national, who can have leave to remain, and who can stay for a limited period. What we have a is a vastly complex web of rules that can be gamed ad naueseum. Future posts will address this.
The answer is that Badenoch's "reforms" are timid and wouldn't make any difference. It seems that whatever her own personal qualities, she is hamstrung by being leader of the Conservative (sic) Party. Of course her own status as effectively an immigrant (born in Britain but raised in Nigeria) also makes it hard for her to challenge immigration.
The Conservatives have been promising to rein in immigration at every election since 2010, and once elected have increased it substantially every time. Why would anyone trust them again?
"Victory belongs to the most persevering," said Napoleon Bonaparte, who persevered but was defeated and died in exile. 😉
You are right about lawfare, and great work connecting all those dots.
What needs to be done in Britain is clear: the Human Rights Act needs to be repealed and Britain needs to withdraw from the ECHR.
So why don't the Establishment Right propose this?
As in the rest of Europe, the Establishment Right has been taken over by careerist hacks who are far too cowardly to take on the Leftist activists by doing what needs to be done. However a new wind is blowing both here and across Europe. This is not just a US phenomenon. New more robust parties of the Right are taking over in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary and elsewhere.
The sooner the old Establishment Right parties properly disappear or are absorbed in the new ones, the sooner we can get these issues sorted out.
The Left only engage in this lawfare (which is expensive, time-consuming and not always effective) because they know they cannot win in the democratic political arena. You don't need to wage legal cases to stop the human rights nonsense. You just need to change the law and face down the Leftist whingeing that results.
It's genuinely more complicated, sadly, than just withdrawing from the ECHR. There are good reasons why this hasn't happened. More likely I think is that a new European consensus results in amendments to the Convention.
Maybe there are good reasons. I haven't heard any, but you might like to give us some?
Both the Good Friday Agreement and the Windsor Framework are predicated on ongoing commitment to the ECHR rights, but also courts have been busily entrenching a lot of the rights into UK law anyway. 'Leaving' the ECHR is a vexed matter - it can't really just be done with a stroke of the pen. (Or, it could, and completely collapse the political situation in Northern Ireland.)
Fair enough - there are two options to deal with the Good Friday Agreement: you could, as you put it, decide to completely collapse the political situation in Northern Ireland. Or you could pass an Act declaring that the ECHR does not apply in the UK apart from Northern Ireland. The Human Rights Act could definitely be easily repealed, leaving the ECHR as just a treaty agreement.
I'm not sure that the Windsor Framework actually mentions the ECHR, but I could be mistaken on that.
This whole issue was caused in the first place by an Establishment attempt to fudge the issue of whether Northern Ireland is part of the UK or not!
As far as entrenchment of the rights into UK law is concerned, I'm sure you are right but the courts would definitely get the political message if we repealed the HR Act and left the ECHR. Court decisions on these matters (and many others) are much more political than lawyers claim them to be. They are also much more easily influenced by the political environment than is believed by those who imagine the law to be purely dictated by documents and rules.
The problem is that if the ECHR only applies in Northern Ireland you end up with a different immigration regime there, which means in effect a hard border between NI and GB, which means massive kick-off.
Progressive lawfare is the biggest untold 'politics' story of of recent decades....held nicely out of focus by the great Politics-as-Gladitorial-Election-Contest entertainment industry and its useful-idiot commentariat punditry. This City Journal article on it is well worth a read: https://www.city-journal.org/article/what-criminologists-dont-say-and-why# Brief excerpt:
"....Evidence of the liberal tilt in criminology is widespread. Surveys show a 30:1 ratio of liberals to conservatives within the field, a spread comparable with that in other social sciences."
Yes, it's not quite that bad in Law as it retains a strong link to commercial practice, but still bad. I wouldn't be surprised if you told me the left-right voting ratio among legal academics in the UK is 9:1.
I'm 2/3 through, but must stop to say: wonderful, thank you. I believe The Unity Project must have scrolled before Charlotte Gill's horrified eyeballs. I am not so surprised by the yooman rights stuff as I am by the outfits that have charitable status.
Good article - yes its a knife fight and there are dozens, maybe hundreds of Leftists lawfare cases like this - here is a quote from a recent Fabian paper - they intend to make their changes irreversible and beyond the reach of the democratic process:
"In particular, creating more dispersed centres of power within the public sector and stronger partnerships involving businesses, unions and the third sector will make it harder for the right to unpick progress in the future.."
I don't know, but I imagine that the US Constitution's explicit prohibition of "cruel and unusual punishment" has some antecedent in common law. The net effect is that sentences can generally only get milder over time, and common sense remedies like castration of serial rapists and pedophiles that might reduce recidivism and have a deterrent effect have no real chance of implementation. Any thoughts?
Yes. The expansion has come because Article 3 of the ECHR includes 'treatment' as well as punishment. BPB was not being 'punished' by not having access to public funds. The idea that it is treatment leading to her destitution, which is inhuman and degrading. Regarding punishment, the important case is Tyrer v UK, from the 1970s, where the court held that corporal punishment is intrinsically degrading.
the gutting of USAID will be a financial equaliser
Sadly not. It wil have an effect but the European Commission is bad enough!
one hand tied behind your back is better than two, and at this rate the EU commission needs to start picking it's battles
as you say, who wants it more?
describing DOGE's gutting of USAID author/journalist Patrick Lawrence mentions how it has become an aid agency that long ago succumbed to ideology and corruption, a decline that became visible during the Reagan years "...and the birthing of the straight-out malevolent National Endowment for Democracy, a C.I.A. op in very thin disguise...." - https://www.unz.com/plawrence/musk-the-myth-of-usaid/
Depressing. I am aware of such cases happening, but only now am able to understand what is going on. Thanks
This is neither nor there perhaps but it seems like we’ve allowed leftists to seize control of our institutions, infuse “white guilt” into them, and turn institutional power against the people. They intimidate and terrorize us all with their “hate speech” laws, cancel culture, and endless nagging and backstabbing. The situation is intolerable.