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Asking London's Human Rights Act Campaigners About Their Favorite Human Rights

Now that the Conservatives have won the election in the UK, they are gearing up to scrap Great Britain's Human Rights Act. We talked to some left-wing activists to get their thoughts on the potential end of human rights protections in the UK.

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

With the Conservatives riding to election victory largely on the back of fears that Labour would piss tax payers' money up the wall, it's a little hard to gauge how much of a mandate they have for some of their more controversial social policies. Tucked away on page 60 of their manifesto is the line: "The next Conservative Government will scrap the Human Rights Act, and introduce a British Bill of Rights."

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The hang-'em-and-flog-'em brigade hopes that this will make it easier for the government to thwart the terrorists trying to blow us up at any given moment, the hate preachers screaming "death to the West!" on every street corner, and the thieves trying to steal your possessions every time you leave the house. Advocates of the Human Rights Act (HRA), on the other hand, reckon that things like "the right not to be tortured," "freedom from slavery," and "the right to a fair trial" are probably worth hanging on to.

On Saturday, some people gathered outside Downing Street to protest the move. There were a lot of Lib Dems, presumably ruing that they were protesting outside Number 10 rather than ruling from inside it, and some socialists and various other campaigners. I went along to ask them what they think of the government's plans and why they love human rights so much. I also took a little white board along and asked people to write their favorite human right on it. Human rights are supposed to be indivisible, but with the government wanting to attack them, who knows, maybe it's time to prioritize.

Charley Hasted, student

VICE: You seem not to have chosen a favorite human right for the white board.
Charley: No. My degree is in human rights law, so I spent three years doing nothing but studying human rights, and they're all so lovely.

They are. But c'mon, what's your absolute fav?
If you absolutely pushed me I think I'd go for freedom from discrimination. I'm LGBT, I'm disabled, so it's the right that most crops up in my day-to-day life. I've helped with human rights cases, and when you've got one right being breached, you'll almost always find you've got several more alongside that. You can't just say that one is the essential essence of the HRA.

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Do you think misinformation is feeding a disregard for the HRA?
Completely. It's people not understanding that human rights are there for them regardless of who they are. Most of the cases get brought by minority groups: They're brought by disabled people, LGBT people, black people. But that's because you only bring a case when your rights have been infringed. If you're white, if you're middle class, if you're male, if you're not disabled, more often than not, you're unlikely to find your rights are being breached. But that doesn't mean that the rights aren't still there protecting you. It's that right that allows you to go out and demonstrate, it's those rights that give you the right to a fair trial. And you have them, you have those rights, even if they're never breached, they're there protecting you all the time.

Charlie Tuesday Gates, an artist from Kentish Town.

If you had to chose a favorite human right, what would it be?
Charlie Tuesday Gates: I love them all—I can't choose! They're too important.

How can humans save the HRA?
We can come together. We need to unite. People are power, and we have to do it together. There's people out there who care, like you—you've just got to join them.

Marcus Trower, deputy chair of the National Bargee Travellers Association

Why are you here today?
Marcus: In our organization, we use different rights in order to protect ourselves. One of them is the right to family life. That's one of the things the Tories wish to get rid of. If they do, it means it will be much more difficult for us to send our kids to school and argue for pregnant mothers to be around hospitals. So we wish to have as many tools as possible to protect our lives living on the water.

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Do you feel that if the Tories withdraw the HRA, then you would be under threat?
We're under threat at the moment, it would just be another tool gone. We want to keep as many tools in our toolbox as possible. We're not going to stop if they get rid of it. It's our home, we deserve to be able to have a family and the rest of it. We'll still fight even if they get rid of it.

That leads us on to what you wrote on the white board—the right not to be punished unfairly. Could you tell me about that?
We believe that we're being targeted as people that are traveling, rather than with a mooring. We have so many rules put upon us that we're being targeted unfairly. We don't see it as fair to be able to target a particular minority, and we are being targeted as a minority. We get a lot of shit, and we believe it's unfair.

Jos Bell, chair of Socialist Health Association and health campaigner

Why are you down here today?
Jos Bell: I was invited to come and speak in my role as chair of the Socialist Health Association. I've been involved in health campaigning in London and nationally now for several years, throughout the last government my time was taken up with the Health and Social Care Act [which critics say will lead to the privatization of the NHS]. My role is health and well-being. I think an attack on the HRA is an attack on everybody's health and well-being.

Aren't the privatization of services and human rights two separate issues?
Absolutely not. If you look at the articles that are under threat, it includes the right to education, a right to freedom of expression, a right to be able to assemble and discuss things, the right to freedom of thought. The most sinister statement that has come out of a government in my living memory is David Cameron saying, "For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: 'Just because you are obeying the law, we will leave you alone.'" I found that to be a frightening statement—what does it mean? It must mean that they're going to take away these basic principles that have underpinned our society.

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We have to explain to the public what this means to their individual lives. Will their child be entitled to an education? Will they be entitled to find and have a GP? That's becoming increasingly difficult. Will the NHS Constitution stack up in law?

You seem quite frightened.
I am. This is the UK, we're supposed to stand up. The Magna Carta and human rights legislation we developed over time is something that we should be immensely proud of. And we should be proud of the NHS. The government we have now are hell-bent on destroying that.

Jon Warner, Campaigns Officer, TUC

So why is freedom of expression your favorite right?
Jon: I'm a law student, and us lawyers, we like fiddling around with the convention rights, and Article 10 in particular. I also believe it's an important right to prevent issues from being censored out and to have people's voices heard.

Do you think there is some strength in the government's argument that it would more effectively curtail people who are preaching hatred against Britain?
I don't believe that. I believe it's quite populist, this view that's being espoused by the government and I think it's quite dangerous for people to be misled into pandering to it. I don't believe the view that's being espoused—that the HRA is nothing more than a "charter for criminals." There's nothing that says you need to let them off. It simply offers basic protections to a person in the justice system.

Thanks, Jon.

Follow Will on Twitter.