Lawyer reminds Sir Keir why human rights exist
JVL Introduction
Clive Stafford Smith, writing for the Good Law Project about the proscription of Palestine Action, is incensed at legal colleagues failing to act as “any lawyer with a soul” should – to defend the human rights of the weak when they are under assault by the powerful.
Stafford Smith has personally defended 87 Guantánamo inmates, allegedly members of Al Qaida. Now he sees the terrorist label applied to people such as Laura Murton, threatened with arrest by armed police because she was holding a Palestinian flag and signs saying “Free Gaza” and “Israel is committing genocide”.
By taking this path, he says, “erstwhile human rights lawyer” Sir Keir Starmer has strayed far from the commitment to the Human Rights Act we should expect from a Labour Government.
NWI
This article was originally published by Good Law Project on Wed 23 Jul 2025. Read the original here.
In support of Palestine Action’s right to protest
Supporting Palestine Action’s right to protest is not the same as supporting Palestine Action. It’s time for Keir Starmer to remember why human rights exist,
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Judge Chamberlain (considering Palestine Action’s appeal for a full judicial review against its proscription) said he’d be making a statement on the case today. Hoping the law will protect our rights against a damnable government that attacks them!!!
We have to wait until the 30th for Judge Chamberlain to declare his decision on the judicial review.
“Spray painting a bomber at RAF Brize Norton is hardly equivalent to blowing up the World Trade Center in New York on 9/11.”
Interesting language. Worth bearing in mind that WTC7 also collapsed despite the fact that no plane struck it. Worth bearing in mind also that the Bush administration did everything it possibly could to prevent and then to sabotage an inquiry into 9/11.
It is important to consider why they would do that.
Well, good article, but why does any of this need to be said? It is surely self-evident that ‘human rights’ are indissoluble and based on millennia-old, moral principles? What should be the thrust of this is exactly why the execrable Starmer has behaved like this. His ‘Zionism without qualification’ has seemingly allowed him to ape the Israeli regime and justify any sub-human behaviour, lie or about-turn when it suits his grotesque agenda. He idolises the fascists in Apartheid Israel and should be constantly exposed as one of their most obsequious acolytes.
Very useful piece, many thanks to Clive and JVL.
I am saving on it my phone so as to educate any police who, to paraphrase Chamberlain J, have no idea of the law and try to interact with me in that ignorance. I suggest everyone does so.
On Wednesday this week we will discover whether Mr. Justice Chamberlain is a man of principle or a pusillanimous vassal.
Yet in ten years time his decision will appear far more momentous for him than for anyone else; for by then tidal forces will have revealed to all that his decision did not significantly change the course of history, but only determined which side he chose.
The whole episode is disgusting! Cooper and Starmer should be held accountable!
Thank you. A thousand times thank you for speaking up in this way, quoting the legal “chapter and verse” on why the Prime Minister is so very wrong.
So now what? What’s to be done when such bad faith is being shown by one who knows better but acts worse?
Speaking ahead of his meeting with Trump, Sir Keir described “images of starving children” in Gaza as “revolting”.
At the meeting, both leaders “agreed that urgent action was needed to bring an end to the suffering” in Gaza, Downing Street said (BBC website).
All very nice but still not attributing the starvation to IDF actions! Big problem is that ‘urgent action’, during this 70year protracted injustice was demanded back in 2023 and ever since but KS and Co. have only shown support for Israel’s actions (the right to defend itself), prevaricated ad nauseam, so making the PM’s Damascene conversion as believable as Bibi’s denial of starvation in Gaza. Backing this interpretation is that still to this day KS allows F-35 parts to be sold directly to, or accessed by, Israel, all the better to continue bombing the tents so many Palestinians in Gaza are reduced to ‘live’ and die of starvation in. Only temporally though until instructed to move for the umpteenth time or face being targeted by UK enabled bombing by F-135s. Things would be improved if only we had a Labour government.
Clive Stafford Smith has a much bigger conscience than Starmer, who used to defend the underdog to find the truth. Now he makes the truth up as he goes along. His Zionism is getting in the way of his new Judaism. Is he going to apologise to all the dead Palestinians he helped kill on the Day of Atonement? Hopefully he will be judged when this genocide is over.
Clive Stafford Smith takes no hostages, if you will forgive the expression! He has always stood up for human rights, and for human rights law, in a way that very few others have done, and has never forgotten that is a line never to be crossed. His rage underlines why the attack on Palestine Action is an attack on human rights, the right to express support for human rights, and the way terrorism law interfaces with human rights law. It is also an attack on the Palestinian people of Gaza and the West Bank, when it matters more to proscribe PA than to stand up to the bullying, the torment, the torture, and the destruction of lives committed by the State of Israel.
I am so disappointed with this Labour Government regarding this issue. My understanding is that at the time the Suffragettes were regarded as “Terrorists” something that Yvette Cooper would do well to remember. Without those “Terrorists” it is more than likely she wouldn’t hold the position she holds today. 450 arrests in London yesterday is an utter waste of our Police resources which might be better spent protecting Brize Norton which they are paid to do anyway. Time to analyse the alleged £7,000,000 damage inflicted by Palestine Action I think.