What is so confusing about human rights is figuring out who they apply to. After all, “man” can mean anyone. This is not just a matter of those endlessly rehearsed questions about what “family life” means or how the rights of irregular migrants intersect with the need to control our borders. This week, a much more urgent and disturbing iteration of this issue has come to light. In selfless service to the public good, UK Reform has exposed what they fear is a grave injustice: that the government has violated the human rights of ultra-rich immigrants who wish to donate to political parties. Like businessman Christopher Harborne, who last year kindly gave £12m to Reforma and who happens to live in Thailand, has dual citizenship and is also known as Chakrit Sakunkrit.
Monstrously, the Starmer regime has decreed that gifts from immigrants to Britain’s political parties must not exceed £100,000 a year. It is assumed that excuse because this is that while most immigrant donations are “entirely unproblematic”, the permissibility of such donations presents “an additional risk of foreign money flowing into British politics” and that investigating suspected misuse is “more complex” for UK authorities. The review also contends, in an unmistakable echo of Stalin’s Great Terror, that “wealthy individuals” who have chosen to “minimize their contribution to the UK Treasury” are still allowed “to make game-changing donations in British politics”.
of Daily Telegraph reports that Reform party treasurer Charlton Edwards has duly written to the Secretary of State for Housing, Steve Reed, to protest that the Starmerite cap amounts to “retrospective interference with guaranteed financial rights”. It contravenes the European Convention on Human Rights on two counts: Article 1 of Protocol 1, regarding the protection of property, and Article 6 of the main Convention – the right to a fair trial. Edwards charges that the cap also raises a “direct issue” under Article 7, which states that no one will be found guilty of an act that has become a crime since they applied it.
The government claims that the changes are in line with the ECHR. But they would say that, wouldn’t they? If an immigrant wants to donate money to a party that wants to repeal the Human Rights Act and withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, is it not his human right to do so? After all, the Convention was drawn up in the late 1940s, in the dawn after the darkest hour, to ensure that people would never again be subjected to the horrors of totalitarianism. And what could be more illiberal and undemocratic than trying to stop a British citizen – or indeed a British-Thai citizen – contributing generously millions and millions of pounds to a British political party?
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However, this raises an intriguing question. Would this serious case have gone to court and still be pending when Reform in the UK won the election – would high principle force the new government to begrudgingly renege on their promise to withdraw immediately from the ECtHR until their case was won? Perhaps the way to solve our puzzle is to look to a country that Reform leaders have hailed as a model for our sunken island: the United Arab Emirates. Reform’s Richard Tice, a frequent visitor, told the BBC last year that Britain should learn from the UAE. As he put it: “If you’re in a coffee shop, and as a lady you leave your purse and phone on the table, go to the bathroom, then come back a few minutes later – guess what? Your purse is still there, your phone is still there. And that’s the kind of society we should aspire to.” Likewise, this January, Farage advised that Britain has “much to learn” from the UAE.
And it’s no wonder. This beautifully lit desert utopia is not only the refuge that accepts many refugees from the ever-darkening dystopia of Britain, driven from their homeland by the relentless tsunami of cafe bag theft and indifferent weather, and by the fact that it has a tax system. Fittingly, Farage made his observation at a party to celebrate half a decade of GB News, in the most natural setting to celebrate a truly patriotic British news channel: Palm Tower, Dubai.
He also praised the UAE’s attractive mix of low crime, entrepreneurship and “reasonable” taxes. Admittedly, it is not immediately clear how a state can achieve a low crime rate with even lower taxes. Maybe it has to do with human rights. But alas, on closer inspection, it turns out that the UAE is an absolute monarchy with a history of human rights that warrants a Wikipedia entry, titled “Human Rights in the UAE”, at over 13,000 words. And not, alas, in a good way.
Indeed, this week allegations surfaced in THE Times that British expatriates in the United Arab Emirates have had their human rights violated for taking pictures of Iranian missile attacks on the Emirates, on the grounds that it is forbidden to take pictures that could “concern public security”. There are claims of sleep deprivation, denial of medication, being forced to sign documents in Arabic, even beatings. Any such treatment is abhorrent and should never happen. There can be no excuse for it. If only there had been any indication of the human rights record in the United Arab Emirates.
So what should we conclude from all this? The only reasonable conclusion is to follow the wise advice of the Reformation that Britain should try to be more like a country that does not have much for human rights, because these rights are so important and should not be infringed by the government, and the European Convention and the act of parliament that enshrines those rights in UK law should be repealed as soon as possible.
Because the UK has clearly got human rights all wrong. The strain on the generosity of foreign donors is not the first time that the human rights of some of our most vulnerable citizens appear to have been violated. Consider the freehold investors, for example, who opposed the Rent and Freehold Reform Act 2024. This, among other horrors, infringes on their right to charge tenants professional and legal fees for lease extensions. The act, the freeholders argued, violated their human right to private property under Article 1 of Protocol 1 of the European Convention. However, the Supreme Court had the temerity to reject their calls for justice.
So what we really need is some kind of rule to help us make sure that billionaire immigrants can exercise their human right to spend as much money as they like funding parties that want to repeal the Human Rights Act. And that the human rights of other immigrants living in countries with little respect for human rights are respected – albeit without casually extending those rights to the point where their cleaners, say, can form a union. This, God forbid, would make Dubai a bit like Britain. It won’t be easy, but now is the time to ensure that human rights are reserved for the right people.
(Further reading: UK reform is too weird to win)
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