The UK is signatory to the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees and the European Convention on Human Rights.
These are legal documents, but "refugee" and "human rights" are used as catchwords/phrases to promote highly subjective moral agendas.
Having two bites of the cherry is not right.
The definition of a refugee is someone who has a "well-found fear of persecution".
But very many people who aren't being persecuted but don't want to return to their own country are successful in claiming refugee status. They appeal to moral issues.
There should be no bigger "right" than to prevent other people from occupying one's territory. But Englishmen have no such "right". On 10 June 1977 I complained unsuccessfully to the European Commission of Human Rights about foreign and Commonwealth men being able to live and work in the UK through marriage.
Today's Daily Telegraph (page 18) has an article by Britain's Foreign Secretary, William Hague, headed "Human rights are key to our foreign policy".
Mr. Hague does not refer to any specific article in the European Convention on Human Rights. Mr. Hague is being vague.
He states: "We cannot have a foreign policy without a conscience.
"... We have campaigned against forced marriages and lobbied the Government of Iran over death penalty cases, women's rights and religious freedom."
The Rights of Man, advocated by Thomas Paine, has become "human rights" under the influence of Eleanor Roosevelt. "Human rights" have (supposedly) subsumed everyone's "rights". Therefore there is no such thing as "women's rights" any more than there are "men's rights".
Britain doesn't stone anyone to death, but people in glasshouses shouldn't throw stones.
If there is a problem with Iran it's her potential nuclear weapons capability. Britain's pretensions to moral superiority fool nobody - at least, not in Asia.
Tuesday, 31 August 2010
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