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<\/p>\nSources tell me that following Monday night's Parliamentary Labour Party meeting, at which Rachel Reeves outlined her desperate plan for growth, including her newfound support for the expansion of Heathrow, word was let slip that Labour might support leaving the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) if those impacted by its plans seek recourse to that Court to block Labour's desperate desire for growth, whatever the human and environmental cost.<\/p>\n
Leaving the ECHR has long been a far-right dream of the likes of Suella Braverman, who wished to deny human rights to refugees by exiting this court, which has nothing to do with the EU and which was founded on the initiative of the UK that Winston Churchill supported as a buttress against the forces of fascism. Now it seems Starmer and Reeves might be rethinking their support for it.<\/p>\n
Why is that? It's because Starmer has changed his view on Heathrow. This was him in 2020:<\/p>\n
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Now, he is the person supporting the plans for the expansion of that airport.<\/p>\n
Those opposing will include the 10,000 whose homes might have to be bulldozed, and unsurprisingly, they will fight for as long as possible to keep their homes and their communities. One option for them would be to go to the ECHR. This would delay the whole process, of course, and so Labour's rumoured intention is to put these people in the same position as newts that stand in the way of politicians' follies, like this airport expansion, by denying them their rights, including an appeal to the ECHR.<\/p>\n
Labour could, of course, deliver this plan even if some of its MPs rebelled. The Tories would line up to vote for it. So, Starmer, who is supposedly a human rights lawyer, could deliver one of the most significant setbacks to human rights in the UK ever, all for the purpose of delivering utterly pointless, environment-wrecking, value-destroying growth when that is not what people want<\/a> from the government.<\/p>\n The rumour may just be an idle threat, of course. It could be deliberately misleading. And it could be a planned action by desperate people who are losing touch with reality. I fear it might be the last of these options. If so, it says all we need to know about Starmer and Reeves. But what worries me is that someone could have even thought this up. We should be worried.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"