Legislating against reality

Douglas Adams had this to say about law and reality:

“The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is an indispensable companion to all those who are keen to make sense of life in an infinitely complex and confusing Universe, for though it cannot hope to be useful or informative on all matters, it does at least make the reassuring claim, that where it is inaccurate it is at least definitively inaccurate. In cases of major discrepancy it's always reality that's got it wrong.

This was the gist of the notice. It said "The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate."

This has led to some interesting consequences. For instance, when the Editors of the Guide were sued by the families of those who had died as a result of taking the entry on the planet Tralal literally (it said "Ravenous Bugblatter Beasts often make a very good meal for visiting tourists: instead of "Ravenous Bugblatter Beasts often make a very good meal of visiting tourists"), they claimed that the first version of the sentence was the more aesthetically pleasing, summoned a qualified poet to testify under oath that beauty was truth, truth beauty and hoped thereby to prove that the guilty party in this case was Life itself for failing to be either beautiful or true. The judges concurred, and in a moving speech held that Life itself was in contempt of court, and duly confiscated it from all those there present before going off to enjoy a pleasant evening's ultragolf.”

Last week the UK Government legislated that Rwanda was a "safe" country, in that all officials should conclude it was thus.

The point here being that if Rwanda was indeed a safe country, in that any refugee were sent there were in no danger, then there would be no no need to legislate it otherwise.

As a wag on Twitter said at the time, the Government might have well have legislated that all dogs are cats.

Reality no longer matters.

The plan to disapply the ECHR or the UK HR Act is a legal non-trick. Confusing UK sovereignty with its obligations to the varios international treaties and agreements it has freely entered into as was its then sovereign right to do so. That it can only be sovereign if the UK can decide not to honour those obligations, is the latest the very Brexity or even cakey ideals that the whole Brexit headbangers convnc themselves is right.

If the UK does pass the Rwanda Act, then it at a swipe becomes untrustworthy on the international stage, at a time when it expects contries like Russia, China and Isreal to honour their traty agreements for various reasons. Once you decide to break your commitments, you lose the right to criticise those who do the same.

The Brexiteer plan for simple solutions to complicated problems failed with Brexit as it will fail here. But the plan is just perfomative, to give the impression of doing something, while not intending to fly on migrant to Africa.

Just as well, as it turns out the UK cannot charter any aircraft, as all operators have refused to break international law. As has Rwanda. And there is no airport that will service any such flights, and RAF bases like Boscombe Down needed tens of millions of pounds spent on security fencing and the such like to prevent protests.

The failure of the policy will be placed on "lefty lawyers and judges", or someone else, not their failure to be able, once again, to put policy in action.

Lawyers and judges can only act where the law has been, or is going to be broken, so if the Government does the boring thing like negotiate treaties and get such assurances, then the policy could be made to work. But then the numbers sent are so pitifully small, it will be a meaningless jesture, which is pretty much all this Government is good for.

Last point here is, can the Conservative Party be governed?

Since Johnson expelled the "One Nation Tories" at the end of 2019, the party has lurched even further to the right, and with Brexit a failure, the rise of the renamed UKIP as Reform means that the actions to have a referendum and then actually leave the UK has all be for nothing for the Party, as the threat hasn't gone away, and in fact it is back at square one, this time with Reform stating it will fight every seat with the Conservatives, coupled with the expected return of Naughty Nigel after his spell in the jungle eating emu's anuses, and with Sunak unable to chip away at Labour's leads in the polls, the scale of the defeat might exceed even the harshed predictions.

If not Sunak, then who might lead the Tories next? Apparently, the dream team is a Johnson/Farrage double-headed leadership bid, ignoring the fact how unpopular Johnson still is after Partygate, and the nation apparently unwilling to revist the Brexit battleground issues.

Can the Conservatives shift any firther to the right? Well, it is only just over eight years ago that their Manifesto was faught on remainining in the EU.

My guess is harder and stupider.