LONDON—In a sweeping speech Monday, Prime Minister David Cameron said mending England’s “broken society” was his priority and he called the four days of riots “a wake-up call.”
He declared a war on gangs and announced plans to accelerate a program to “turn around the lives of the 120,000 most troubled families in the country.”
He also promised ministers would “review every aspect of our work,” including “the twisting and misrepresenting of human rights that has undermined personal responsibility.”
The comments come as the country struggles with the aftermath of four days of rioting and looting in English cities that began Aug. 6. Five people were killed and 1,400 have been charged with riot-related offences.
Cameron has promised an iron fist in dealing with those convicted of crimes during the riots and new police powers to combat public disorder.
Police will be allowed to require those suspected of criminal acts to remove any masks or hoods, and the government is investigating ways to stop people using social media and text messaging to organize riots.
On Monday, the prime minister placed blame for the riots not on poverty, race or government austerity measures, but on behaviour.
“People showing indifference to right and wrong, people with a twisted moral code, people with a complete absence of self-restraint,” he said at a youth centre in Witney, his parliamentary district in southern England.
He then drew a direct link between the Human Rights Act and the riots, saying the act has had a “corrosive influence on behaviour and morality,” and pledged the government would seek reforms to the European Convention on Human Rights.
Human rights experts say Cameron’s hard line and his targeting of human rights amount to an attack on civil liberties.
The Director of the Human Rights Centre at Durham University, Helen Fenwick, said she sees a move to “ratchet back on human rights protections associated with Europe.”
The conservatives campaigned on repealing the Human Rights Act and replacing it with a British Bill of Rights, something that’s been put before a parliamentary commission after disagreement between the conservatives and their coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats.
The Human Rights Act was enacted in 2000 and is based on the European Convention on Human Rights—which all European Union members are required to adhere to.
Conservatives view the act as a European import that places too much value on individual rights and not enough on the interests of the wider society.
Robert Hazell, director of the constitution unit at the University College of London, said any conservative-led reform would undoubtedly include a weakening of individual rights and freedoms.
He accused Cameron of playing politics with his speech.
“He’s throwing some red meat at the right wing of the conservative party who strongly dislike the Human Rights Act and strongly dislike the European Union.”
The Human Rights Act isn’t viewed in the U.K. with the same respect as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, he added.
“It’s seen as one of the symbols of Canadian identity. And there’s no equivalent respect for the Human Rights Act in the U.K.”
Fenwick cautioned against a “panic-stricken rush to take measures” and said she disagreed that human rights can be related to the riots.
Labour Leader Ed Miliband criticized the prime minister for providing “shallow and superficial answers.”
But both leaders agreed politicians, journalists and bankers share responsibility for the moral decline, following the banking crisis and the phone hacking and MP expense scandals.
Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said Monday he was checking whether those involved in the riots should have welfare payments cut, Associated Press reported.
In other developments, the riots have prompted a backlash from London’s public housing councils. Wandworth Council in south London has issued an eviction notice to a mother whose son was charged in connection with riots, arguing that the child’s alleged criminal behaviour violates the tenancy agreement. Other councils are looking at similar measures.
The BBC is coming under pressure to make a public apology after the historian David Starkey made comments on a BBC television news program that many have deemed racist.
Starkey, a frequent commentator in the British media, said on BBC’s Newsnight on Friday that “the white had become black.” He claimed riots were caused by “black culture.”
“A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic culture has become the fashion,” he told a stunned panel.
British courts continue to slog through the thousands of cases stemming from the riots. A justice ministry spokesperson told the BBC 1,179 people have appeared in court, with 65 per cent of those remanded into custody.
Origin
Source: Toronto Star
He declared a war on gangs and announced plans to accelerate a program to “turn around the lives of the 120,000 most troubled families in the country.”
He also promised ministers would “review every aspect of our work,” including “the twisting and misrepresenting of human rights that has undermined personal responsibility.”
The comments come as the country struggles with the aftermath of four days of rioting and looting in English cities that began Aug. 6. Five people were killed and 1,400 have been charged with riot-related offences.
Cameron has promised an iron fist in dealing with those convicted of crimes during the riots and new police powers to combat public disorder.
Police will be allowed to require those suspected of criminal acts to remove any masks or hoods, and the government is investigating ways to stop people using social media and text messaging to organize riots.
On Monday, the prime minister placed blame for the riots not on poverty, race or government austerity measures, but on behaviour.
“People showing indifference to right and wrong, people with a twisted moral code, people with a complete absence of self-restraint,” he said at a youth centre in Witney, his parliamentary district in southern England.
He then drew a direct link between the Human Rights Act and the riots, saying the act has had a “corrosive influence on behaviour and morality,” and pledged the government would seek reforms to the European Convention on Human Rights.
Human rights experts say Cameron’s hard line and his targeting of human rights amount to an attack on civil liberties.
The Director of the Human Rights Centre at Durham University, Helen Fenwick, said she sees a move to “ratchet back on human rights protections associated with Europe.”
The conservatives campaigned on repealing the Human Rights Act and replacing it with a British Bill of Rights, something that’s been put before a parliamentary commission after disagreement between the conservatives and their coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats.
The Human Rights Act was enacted in 2000 and is based on the European Convention on Human Rights—which all European Union members are required to adhere to.
Conservatives view the act as a European import that places too much value on individual rights and not enough on the interests of the wider society.
Robert Hazell, director of the constitution unit at the University College of London, said any conservative-led reform would undoubtedly include a weakening of individual rights and freedoms.
He accused Cameron of playing politics with his speech.
“He’s throwing some red meat at the right wing of the conservative party who strongly dislike the Human Rights Act and strongly dislike the European Union.”
The Human Rights Act isn’t viewed in the U.K. with the same respect as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, he added.
“It’s seen as one of the symbols of Canadian identity. And there’s no equivalent respect for the Human Rights Act in the U.K.”
Fenwick cautioned against a “panic-stricken rush to take measures” and said she disagreed that human rights can be related to the riots.
Labour Leader Ed Miliband criticized the prime minister for providing “shallow and superficial answers.”
But both leaders agreed politicians, journalists and bankers share responsibility for the moral decline, following the banking crisis and the phone hacking and MP expense scandals.
Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said Monday he was checking whether those involved in the riots should have welfare payments cut, Associated Press reported.
In other developments, the riots have prompted a backlash from London’s public housing councils. Wandworth Council in south London has issued an eviction notice to a mother whose son was charged in connection with riots, arguing that the child’s alleged criminal behaviour violates the tenancy agreement. Other councils are looking at similar measures.
The BBC is coming under pressure to make a public apology after the historian David Starkey made comments on a BBC television news program that many have deemed racist.
Starkey, a frequent commentator in the British media, said on BBC’s Newsnight on Friday that “the white had become black.” He claimed riots were caused by “black culture.”
“A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic culture has become the fashion,” he told a stunned panel.
British courts continue to slog through the thousands of cases stemming from the riots. A justice ministry spokesperson told the BBC 1,179 people have appeared in court, with 65 per cent of those remanded into custody.
Origin
Source: Toronto Star
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