The cases of Abu Qatada and Christopher Tappin

It’s a truly rotten State which cossets and pets foreigners who come to its shores, usually illegally, while pushing its own citizens into the hands of foreigners who may bear them ill-will.  Such is the contemporary British State as administered by its government and judges.

Nothing illustrates this grave charge more vividly than the treatment which the UK government and courts have handed out to a British citizen Christopher Tappin, and the so-called radical cleric Abu Qatada, released from gaol after six and a half years in custody, fighting deportation to his own country Jordan where he is wanted on terrorism charges.  In Britain he has been described as “a very dangerous threat to our security”.

Needless to say Qatada entered the United Kingdom on false papers.  Equally to be expected, when detected in Britain, instead of being put straight back on a plane to his point of departure and the airline which brought him heavily fined (as a truck company would have been), Qatada, aided by the usual gaggle of Human Rights pressure groups like Justice, and the courts, has spun out his stay in the country with his large family comfortably lodged here and paid for by the tax-payers for ten years now.

Doubtless Qatada and his Islamicist allies paraphrase Lenin’s famous remark about destroying capitalism, “We will destroy the West, and get them to pay for the privilege.”

Case of Mr Chris Tappin

Contrast this delicate treatment of a foreign national, illegally in this country and wanted on grave charges in his own country, with that of Christopher Tappin, an Englishman about as different from Abu Qatada in race, religion, occupation and nationality as it is possible to be [1].  At 9.30 am on Friday 24^th February, Mr Tappin, aged 65, retired businessman is to be handed over to United States marshals, almost certainly to be incarcerated without trial for a minimum of two years in a violent US prison, for a crime unrecognised in UK law which the US authorities have charged him with on the say-so of a man who has himself apparently been the victim of a US immigration sting operation.

Needless to say, unlike Qatada, none of the facts and allegations have been tested in a British court: instead, as with the European Arrest Warrant (see post of 9 November 2011) and the US-UK Extradition Treaty (see post of 16 November 2010) Mr Tappin, frightened naturally and not in the best of health, is to be wrenched from his blameless life[2] and retirement to a fate few people can imagine.

Where stand the European Court of Human Rights, the British Home Secretary and Justice in these cases?

For Qatada, the ECHR is so prominent that its opinions have over-ridden even the UK Supreme Court judgement that Qatada can lawfully be deported to Jordan.  Justice’s director, Roger Smith, has appeared on TV to support this ECHR’s opinion[3].

For Chris Tappin the answer is nowhere.  Home Secretary Teresa May has rubberstamped the decision of the magistrates and High Court to extradite (deport) him to the US without trial or proper hearing.  It is extremely unlikely that Mr Tappin can get any sort of fair trial in the US, given that his British and Dutch witnesses will refuse to testify for fear they too may be arrested.

More Obedience Training for the British Government

Is there any limit to the humiliations which this wretched government will subject Britain to at the hands of foreign courts or government authorities?

The answer is no – where any or all of the following words are invoked: Human Rights, European Union, United States.

Let it be said again, the European Court of Human Rights has no power to enforce its judgements on the British government or any of its citizens (see post of 9 November 2011).  Power over the British government and citizens resident in the UK rests exclusively with the UK courts.  However the British government and courts, against the clearly expressed will of the British people, have chosen to act as if the ECHR’s judgements were somehow binding on us.  They are not.  As Stalin might have remarked, “How many divisions has the European Court got?”  Or as Thomas Hobbes did say (in 1651), “Covenants without swords are but words”.

Obeying the ECHR, like paying enormous bills for belonging to the EU, and drawing up a totally one-sided and immoral extradition treaty with the USA in 2003, come as second nature to the British Establishment.  They wish to retain what they refer to as the “moral high ground”, something recognised only by themselves and the supporting cast of human rights lawyers.  The 62 million British people not in this tight little circle care not a fig for the “moral high ground”, knowing from bitter experience it serves only to put the British citizen to an unending series of compensation payments to foreign criminals and illegal immigrants.

In fact the phrase, “moral high ground” is used by foreigners as a tool in British obedience training much as the well-known trainer Barbara Woodhouse used “walkies” on her dogs.  Likewise the UK intelligence services have only to murmur “threat to the special relationship” in the ear of any government minister seeking to pursue a British interest disapproved of by the US administration to get them to desist.

An end to UK grovelling

The objects of UK grovelling – the US and the EU/ECHR – while appreciating the British assets they have access to – simply have contempt for its British practitioners.

In obedience to the ECHR a “high level delegation” of Home Office civil servants was despatched to Jordan on February 13^th to get its government to change its law to the satisfaction of the ECHR.  As with all obedience training it has not told either the UK or the Jordanian government what would satisfy it to get it to lift its hot air embargo, since the ECHR’s prime objective in all this is not the welfare of Qatada, but to reinforce its supposed authority over the UK.  With the first delegation failing to persuade the Jordanians to change their law, now (February 18^th)  the Home Secretary Teresa May is to be despatched by Prime Minister Cameron to “sort it”.  If that doesn’t succeed, what will he do next – send the Queen?

By simply telling the ECHR that Abu Qatada has been deported in accordance with the UK Supreme Court decision (against which judgement there can be no successful application by Justice for a stay) with one bound our government will be free to ignore the ECHR again and again, until it becomes a pleasant, self-reinforcing habit.

Likewise, telling the US and the EU that the UK will legislate to provide a proper trial in Britain for any UK citizen which the US or EU country wants to extradite, will bring relief to many trapped in their extradition systems and happiness to millions who would see this as a start on the way back to national self-respect.

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