Founder member of Liberal Vannin, Peter Karran gives his views on topics that takes his fancy in this occasional column for our website
6. Human Rights
The question has to be asked: can the Manx government trust the UK government to protect its human rights as well as our own citizens?
When you see the obvious breaches of international law now expected from the UK. The lies, deception and most would say corruption. Institutionalised, just like the Isle of Man was riddled with when I was a child.
The way WikiLeaks founder and journalist, Julian Assange, has been treated for exposing the truth and the politicisation of the court proceedings over him is a disgrace. Another is the demonisation of immigrants for all the social ills. Issues that are actually the result of bad Tory political decision-making over the years. Like trying to blame the immigrants for ex servicemen on the streets when it’s a complete fabrication. The real reason is because of the lack of social housing created by Tory policies in the UK for decades. Sending immigrants to Rwanda, a dictatorship that not long ago had genocide and described as a small banana republic nation.
The similarities between the misinformation about and demonisation of immigrants by the Tory Party and its friends in the media and the Nazis demonisation and misinformation of the Jews should be a worry for any fair minded person. If that’s not enough, we also should be concerned about the very vulnerable within United Kingdom society. The 3 million children living in poverty in the United Kingdom, in a first world country. That’s without the tens if not hundreds of thousands of children who are going to going to bed hungry at night because of the systematic destruction and demonisation of the poor.
All this should be enough for Isle of Man citizens to realise enough is enough. Without going into our own previous history, shameful that it was, where our working people had to wait decades to get any sort of real employment protection against bad employers. Even as a young MHK where Police Sergeants could threaten to beat you up, witnessed by an advocate friend. I called upon the following morning to put in a complaint. He nearly had incontinence.
I understand and believe that the biggest burglary cartel on this island was run by the Isle of Man Constabulary and where a boat in the morning was not for come overs it was for trade unionists and for people who stood up against the local mafia that ran the place like a fiefdom.
I hope that the local Amnesty International and the trade union movement won’t stay silent and will start protesting for the need to safeguard human rights. I sat with very old men in political meetings who went to jail for their trade union beliefs. We must stop the sleepwalking back into that. They must campaign to circumvent the UK removing our ability to go to the European Court on Human Rights. I’ll remind people I told them in Tynwald 30 odd years ago if I have to choose between you or a bunch of ‘Froggy’ judges, without a word of French, I take my chances with the foreign judges any day. I believe Tynwald is not safe to protect the human rights of the people of Mann, let alone the United Kingdom‘s government.