IN the scale of its treachery and incompetence, Sir Keir Starmer’s Government is turning out to be worse than even the gloomiest pessimists feared.
Britain now appears to be ruled by a left-wing, self-destructive cabal that loathes our country and has contempt for our national interests.
Keir Starmer should not allow Gerry Adams to receive compensationPA:Press Association
Photopress – BelfastAdams (in glasses) pictured at a 1971 funeral for an IRA commander[/caption]
That unpatriotic spirit shines through policies like the desperation to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius or the threats to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, our staunchest ally in the Middle East.
But the pattern of disdain for Britain really plumbs the moral depths with the Government’s recent judicial manoeuvres which have opened up the sickening possibility that the taxpayer may have to fork out compensation for Gerry Adams, the sinister former leader of the Irish Republican movement.
It is hard to think of a more grossly offensive use of public money.
As an apologist for terrorism, Adams was a diehard enemy of our country throughout the long, bitter years of the Troubles.
Altogether, 3,500 people were killed in the conflict, 1,840 of them civilians.
The Republicans were responsible for some of the darkest atrocities in modern European history, including the Birmingham pub bombings in 1974 and the Remembrance Sunday massacre at the cenotaph in the rural town of Enniskillen in 1987.
Growing up in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles during the 1970s, I saw first-hand the fear and misery generated by the savage, indiscriminate violence of the Republican.
Adams may be on the wrong side of history but he could be in the right place for a big payout, thanks to the disastrous machinations of Labour politicians and their top legal advisers.
His chance of compensation stems from his experience in the early 1970s, when he was imprisoned without trial in an internment camp outside Belfast.
In May 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that his detention almost 50 years earlier had been unlawful.
Following this judgment, Adams and more than 400 other former detainees filed claims for compensation.
Across Parliament there was justified outrage at the idea of rewarding Britain’s foes.
So, in 2023, legislation was passed to overturn the Supreme Court ruling and block any payments to Adams and other extremists.
The move was not regarded as controversial.
Even Labour, then in Opposition, supported this new law.
But now the picture has changed dramatically, for two reasons.
First, a single High Court judge ruled that the 2023 legislation, which aimed to prevent Adams from claiming compensation, was in itself unlawful because it breached the Human Rights Act of 1998 — that catastrophic piece of judicial meddling passed by Tony Blair’s government which has become a charter for criminals, a bonanza for lawyers and a wrecking ball for our democratic liberties.
The second disturbing development was Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to appoint Sir Richard Hermer, his close friend and fellow human rights lawyer, as his Attorney General — the Government’s chief legal adviser.
The pair had worked together in the fashionably progressive Doughty Street Chambers and share the same belief that national governance should be ultimately shaped not by the will of the people but by the decisions of a supposedly enlightened judiciary.
Photopress – BelfastAdams carries the coffin of IRA member Tom Williams in 2000[/caption]
AFPThe aftermath of the 1982 car bomb blast near Hyde Park barracks[/caption]
Hermer is such an admirer of Starmer that he gave a donation of £5,000 to Sir Keir’s leadership campaign in 2020.
Sir Richard, now Lord Hermer, is the first Attorney General since 1922 never to have sat in the House of Commons.
At the time of his appointment, one fellow legal professional said that Hermer “would not be distracted by politics”.
But that is precisely the problem.
The Government’s senior law officer should take account of politics — especially public opinion and the feelings of MPs.
Ignoring politics is how the Government has got into such an ugly mess over Gerry Adams.
Instead of fighting the High Court judge’s verdict that the 2023 legislation was incompatible with human rights statutes, Starmer’s Government has meekly surrendered by dropping its appeal.
It is that craven capitulation that has the Republican diehard eyeing up the cash.
Starmer told MPs yesterday that he was determined to use “every conceivable way” to stop any money going to Adams.
‘NATIONAL HUMILIATION’
Well, he has a funny way of showing that resolve, having previously given every indication that his worship at the altar of human rights would leave him with no alternative but to cave in.
After all, being anti-British seems to come easily to Sir Keir at times.
Moreover, his closeness to Lord Hermer hardly inspires confidence that his Government will stand up for what is ethically right.
Indeed, in the past, Hermer has represented Adams in a separate quest for damages.
He has also been the lawyer for Shamima Begum, the notorious jihadi bride, and for the Kenyan Mau Mau terror movement, while he was instrumental in the Labour Government’s decision to halt some arms exports to Israel.
Adams cannot be allowed to receive a penny.
Such an award would be a national humiliation, an affront to democracy and a complete inversion of morality.
It would be a profound insult to all the victims of Republican terrorism.
It is exactly the sort of step that Jeremy Corbyn would have taken had he become Prime Minister.
Starmer was meant to be a rejection of Corbynism, not its fulfilment.
PA:Press AssociationPolice and firefighters at the scene of the Omagh bombing in 1998[/caption] Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
