bOptical talks seem to fall like autumn leaves this time of year. Speeches at Party Conventions. Leadership and speeches at the UN General Assembly. And the budget speech itself is yet to come. However, even the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, may struggle to say anything brighter than a speech this week from a much junior member of the government.
In July, Richard Hermer Casey was plucked from a successful career at the bar by fellow barrister Keir Starmer, who was given a peerage and appointed Attorney General. It was an appointment chosen by Starmer, who overruled shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry. Like Lord Hermer, the former head of Matrix Chambers is now a lawyer for the Starmer government. We can also consider him as the best legal representative of Starmer in the role of lawyer.
This week, Hermer delivered the annual Bingham Lecture at the Grace Inn. Its theme, without a doubt, was chosen in honor of the great judge who remembered the event, threatened by the rule of law and populism. Hermer certainly wrote his own script on Monday. But it is certainly not irresponsible to believe that he is saying things with which Starmer fully agrees and on which he himself places special emphasis.
Hermer's lecture is an uncompromising reaffirmation of the centrality of law to government and politics, both nationally and internationally. He condemned the previous government for deliberately violating some of his Brexit laws and eliminating the role of the courts in Rwanda. Instead, Hermer said workers must respect the European Convention on Human Rights. He then discussed topics ranging from legislative documents to the UN.
However, its central message is that this will be a government that practices what it preaches. He will defend the rule of law “at all times,” Hermer said. Respect for the law is behind his swift action in July to eliminate Rwanda's extradition program. Again it was based on a recent agreement reached with Mauritius through the Chacos Islands. He added that the review of the weapons license for Israel arose from the same approach. It was a decision based on “the law, not politics.” International law, Hermer stated, is an inseparable part of the rule of law. “It's not just some kind of optional add-on that states can choose or choose to comply with.”
There are three ways in which this conference is very important. First of all, Hermer is right. The rule of law applies to everyone living within its jurisdiction. Those who sometimes claim to be above the law – including the super-rich, the press and the military – are no exception. Neither are nation states. It is true that rule of law is an expression that is sometimes misused, especially by politicians. But, as Hermer points out, this is not synonymous with destiny. By The law says that little more than the laws must be obeyed, no matter how they are made.
destination of The law, however, is more substantial and subtle than this, but it is also more unifying and fundamental. A definition long established in Tom Bingham's 2010 book, The Rule of Law: “All persons and authorities, whether public or private, subject to the benefits of publicly enacted laws, in force (generally) in the future and publicly administered in the courts. . No one gets a completely free pass from the rule of law, especially governments.
A second example is that Hermer's lecture may mark a new chapter in the British government's deference to this interpretation. Indeed, Britain has undergone a quiet constitutional revolution over the last quarter of a century. This led to the passage of the Human Rights Act of 1998, the separation of judicial from legislative power in 2005 and marked by Bingham's Law. Continuous consideration and influence. But it's still not completely resolved.
The Silent Revolution produced some notable arguments between the courts and the administration. After 2010, things got systematically difficult under Conservative governments, especially on immigration. Brexit brought this to a head, culminating in the Supreme Court's adjournment ruling in 2019 and its ruling in Rwanda in 2023. In sections of the Conservative party and the press, the tradition is populist opposition to the European Convention , hostility to international law in general and criticism of judges as part of a liberal elite.
Starmer and Hermer represent at least a temporary end to all of this. Whether it lasts depends on whether workers and judges can respect the courts. But it also depends on the politics of the Conservative Party. For now, the prosecutor's role is not to fight the judges, as it was when Suella Braverman was the worst attorney general in modern times, but to support them.
The end result is quite surprising in some ways. But this is the most important thing of all. The lecture says a lot about Hermer's approach to his work. But it says a lot about Starmer's approach to his own role. Critics sometimes question what Starmer really believes. Some say he believes very little. Whether we like it or not, this conference says it is wrong.
Starmer believes in the rule of law. That was his red line. He didn't want to go ahead if he could help it. And the evidence so far is that it won't. That's why he chose Hermer as his attorney general in the first place: because they think alike. Intuition shows itself at all times. Illegality may be close to the issue of Starmer's resignation.
Intuitively, because of the way he discarded the Rwanda Plan, the courts ruled against it and the conservatives offered the alternative of rejecting the law. This was demonstrated in the Treaty of Chacos, where the government lost in court before the transfer was agreed upon. Instead of turning to crowd control or the military, he pressured the police and courts to use all their legal powers to end far-right unrest this summer, marking his biggest internal crisis yet.
The law may be the common thread that explains many of Starmer's decisions in the Middle East, and some of the less decisive ones. If you want to explain your position on issues such as an arms export license to Israel, an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court against Benjamin Netanyahu or, as of yesterday, international humanitarian obligations for the Palestinians besieged in Gaza, it is possible that the clue is already there. . , in that three-word phrase at Hermer's lecture this week. Words that can tell a whole story. “Law, not politics.”
