Theres an "interesting" vote in parliament tomorrow
I cant imagine it not passing, but still...
This is edited from a piece in the Times
"The issue will come to a head tomorrow, when the House of Commons votes on a cross-party amendment to the Trade Bill which would stop ministers striking trade deals with countries found guilty of genocide by the High Court. The measure is aimed fairly and squarely at China, which is accused of appalling human rights abuses against the Uighur population in Xinjiang where a million Muslims have been detained in political re-education camps and women forcibly sterilised. But the implications go much wider, raising questions about whether foreign policy should be “ethical” and about the relationship between ministers and the judiciary.
The proposal, which is supported by all the opposition parties, was recently passed with a huge majority in the House of Lords. Several former Conservative cabinet ministers including Lord Blencathra, the former chief whip, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, the former Scottish secretary, and Lord Pickles, the former party chairman, rebelled to back an amendment tabled by Lord Alton, the crossbench peer and veteran human rights campaigner.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews is also urging the government to accept the clause. In a letter to the prime minister at the weekend, the president Marie van der Zyl noted the similarities between what is alleged to be happening in China and the events in Nazi Germany 75 years ago : “people being forcibly loaded on to trains, beards of religious men being trimmed, women being sterilised and the grim spectre of concentration camps”. She urged Mr Johnson to accept the change to the Trade Bill, insisting: “this is a moment where Britain must be courageous”.
The government is planning to whip its MPs to vote down the amendment but the revolt on the Tory benches in the House of Commons has grown fast in recent days. One rebel leader said “between 50 and 60” Conservative MPs intended to defy the whips, enough to defeat the government. Some will almost certainly fall into line but there is an increasingly angry mood among backbenchers who are yearning for moral leadership from No 10. “This is a government that listens only when it is forced to by rebellion,” one said.
Jeremy Hunt, the former foreign secretary, is among those who is now planning to rebel and either abstain or vote in favour of the amendment tomorrow. “I feel very strongly about this,” he told me. “I was always very struck having visited the genocide memorial sites in Rwanda that Bill Clinton thought his biggest mistake was that he didn’t intervene. He made a wrong call. I think there’s something very powerful about the fact that a UK court could make a determination.”
Although the Foreign Office is nervous of offending China, Mr Hunt believes that having an independent court ruling would in fact strengthen ministers’ hands in dealing with Beijing. “It gives the Foreign Office a bit of cover, they can say this is a court power. It would stiffen the resolve of any government to stand up to genocide.” Britain should, he insists, help “breath life into values-based diplomacy” after Brexit and ahead of the inauguration of Joe Biden in Washington this week. “Donald Trump provided strength but not moral leadership and in the end you need both.”
Downing Street has already been forced to back down once by Tory rebels over China when the prime minister pledged to phase out the role of the Chinese company Huawei in the 5G mobile communications network. Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, also announced last week that companies trading in Britain would face fines unless they could prove that their supply chains were free from forced labour. On Sunday Mr Raab, himself the son of a Jewish refugee who fled the Nazis, said he supported the “spirit” of the amendment to the Trade Bill and condemned China’s treatment of the Uighur community as a “serious violation of human rights on an appalling industrial scale”.
But, having clashed with the judges over the prorogation of parliament in 2019, ministers are determined not to hand them power over foreign policy and trade agreements. The government insists that it is not for British courts to determine whether genocide is taking place in another country. The problem, however, is that this may be the only way in which a ruling can be made. As a member of the UN Security Council, China can block a case being taken to the International Criminal Court. It can also prevent a hearing at the International Court of Justice, since this requires the consent of the parties concerned.
Tom Tugendhat, the Conservative chairman of the Commons foreign affairs committee, who is also planning to vote against the government says: “The whole point of Brexit was to be able to take back control of powers that shape our lives. We need to use that power to have our courts determine whether genocide has been committed and let our sovereign parliament determine the consequences.”
The moral cause has united both Leavers and Remainers against the government. Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader believes the Foreign Office is “desperate not to upset China” after the Huawei decision. But he told me: “There has to be a moral purpose to our foreign policy. We are beyond the days when everyone played games with bad regimes.” This goes way beyond leaving behind the “golden era” of relations between Britain and China that was once championed by David Cameron.
Mr Johnson has already done damage to Britain’s reputation abroad by threatening to break international law if there was no Brexit deal. Ministers have so far failed to join the Netherlands and Canada in supporting the genocide case against Burma at the international court. The question is: what does global Britain stand for now that it is free to set its own course? How willing is the government going to be to turn a blind eye to the human rights abuses in Turkey or the repression of women’s rights campaigners in Saudi Arabia? Having left the EU, we will need all the friends we can find to trade with — but at what price?
China to overtake US as world's biggest economy by 2028, report predicts
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