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January 18, 2021 - 10:04am
Adam Wagner is one of the UK’s highest-profile legal experts on human rights, citing Shami Chakrabati as one of his main influences in the field. He strongly distances himself from “covid deniers” whose attempt to minimise the threat of the virus he describes as “dangerous nonsense”, and expressed dismay at Lord Sumption’s insensitive phrasing about the value of lives on television yesterday. In other words, he’s about as far from an ideological Right-winger as you’ll find in the British media.
So it was especially sobering to hear him set out some of the things he is worried about from a legal and human rights perspective since the pandemic started around 12 months ago. He wondered aloud on Twitter whether, had the virus not originated in China and had the response not been set by their invention of lockdowns, this approach would ever have become the accepted sensible response in liberal Western democracies?
He argues that, while he absolutely accepts that the virus constitutes a threat that justifies emergency action:
- Lockdowns have become a “received wisdom” and that, in due course, a proper inquiry into which components actually were effective, and whether each component passed the proportionality test, is essential.
- The emergency powers taken by the Government have been abused — they were not designed to be used over such a long period of time. He deplores the lack of oversight and due process for these measures that change everybody’s lives.
- The “Napoleonic” principle that everything is illegal unless you are explicitly allowed it is an inversion of the way the law has worked in this country throughout modern times. If you had told a human rights expert or public lawyer this would be the situation 12 months ago they would never have believed you.
- From a Human Rights perspective, balancing the right to life with the right to associate, and the right to a family life, is a precarious act and it is right to scrutinise every measure in that context and be sceptical of them to make sure they are not going too far
- Once restrictions are taken for temporary emergencies, a look at history shows that they tend to become permanent (he cites the terrorism measures in response to 9/11 as an example).
Many thanks to Adam for such an interesting conversation.
Freddie Sayers is the Editor-in-Chief & CEO of UnHerd. He was previously Editor-in-Chief of YouGov, and founder of PoliticsHome.
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SubscribeNo. 1 Covid WILL never leave us, it is now endemic, and will settle down into being another respiratory virus from which some, when they are near the door, die with. No 2. It will mutate, that’s what corona viruses do. No 3. It is NOT particularly lethal either. We know this. With a 99.94% infection survival rate I wouldn’t call it a virus worth wrecking our entire world for. So the question is do we want to face our overreaction, which is over our fear of our own mortality,, and address our wretched anxiety that has fed into people giving up their democratic rights, allow the destruction of all of healthy society in the desire for their own and their family’s ‘safety’ from death. We are not going to be ‘safe’ from this virus or any other virus in that absolutist way people believe they have a ‘right’ to. Being safe is a childlike fantasy, and gets in the way of a grown up discussion and acceptance of what has just happened across the world. Regardless of all lockdowns and measures, the trajectory of the virus continues pretty much the same in every country. When are we going to stop pretending we can control everything?
Trajectory in every country is similar???????? USA UK, 1300 deaths per million, China, 3 deaths per million!!!!! Taiwan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Korea, Japan, Indonesia, 0 – 96! (worldometers)
This is not a disease which has ANY similarity how it effects different peoples.
Also – it is not fear of our mortality which drives this – it is some irrational fear of human rights issues, the ‘If it saves ONE life….’ cra* is the driver, this irrational agenda all must have the same outcomes, so one death is too many..
In the mid-80s a research paper was published by a team that tested a sample of South Africans for antibodies and found that the overwhelming majority had been exposed to TB, without getting sick. Because the pathogen alone doesn’t make you sick. There are other factors involved, such as nutrition, general state of health and housing. I’m retired now but for decades I commuted by train – with people crushed up to you in crowded carriages, breathing and coughing and you’re hanging off straps and supports that a thousand other hands have been hanging onto before you. Even the wealthy who don’t have to commute that way, get into close proximity on crowded pavements (sidewalks), in busy shopping centres; and servants and workmen come into their homes. Authorities have been publishing cov-19 as something that will kill you if a single virus lands on you. And natural immunity is even undesirable (because people who get covid without symptoms are “spreaders”). As a result of which an African country, its credit rating officially “junk,” that couldn’t even house and feed its poor under normal circumstances, deliberately crashed its economy and is now deeper in hock to the World Bank than before.
Last week I made a submission to the Parliamentary Human Rights Committee inquiry into lockdown (it remains to be seen whether they publish it). It focussed on two areas (1) informed consent over vaccination which apart from anything is compromised by the illiterate hue and cry over “antivaxxers” whoever they are, and (2) that if the measures to limit freedom of movement are meant in good faith the government should absolutely stop trying to limit freedom of speech using such deceptive euphemisms as “misinformation”. A falsehood is a falsehood and no one should deliberately commit falsehoods, but “misinformation” and “disinformation” are just terms for things which are politically and bureaucratically inconvenient. The jargon should be instantly viewed with suspicion wherever it appears.
(sorry to reply, but something stops me from posting otherwise, relly want to reply to points raised by the interviewee.)
The right to life: Why do such extreme measures not apply to road accidents? People in the prime of their lives, children and breadwinners are killed, and disabled for life. Why not stop the economy and stop all road traffic until each road user’s life can be assured?
“If covid never leaves us, or mutates, or a different virus….” Covid is not the first virus, not by a long shot the most lethal. And all corona viruses mutate, which is why a new flu shot each year. Humans are walking petrie dishes of pathogens, which human biology is well equipped to combat.
TB is also airborne and spread in exactly the same way as covid. More people still die of TB in South Africa than of covid. If the “measures” had no effect on TB deaths, then it is very doubtful it could have had any effect on covid deaths. So, with or without measures, the same number of people will have died in the UK too.
It is not just UK that was a bit too flexible. The entire world caved in – only Sweden was strong enough to decide differently. And African countries followed the UK’s lead, even though we were at the height of our summer, and locking people up in their crowded shacks was the worst possible thing to do.
“Laws were made in parliament… ” The apartheid laws were also made in parliament. And the human rights lawyers didn’t then hesitate to get involved. But that was, once again, the soft option. It requires no courage to get involved challenging laws that are denigrated worldwide anyway, like the apartheid laws. And you would get your kudos from The Guardian.
So why has Sweden introduced more measures if the model was working? Masks!! They are now recommending them. Why? Clamping down on people meeting. Please can we stop using Sweden as the litmus test. In years to come we might agree that it was a good approach but we can’t tell now. Are there any other countries that have done well? Just asking.
The English Democrats are taking the government to court – here is their statement …
” The British State has officially ‘transitioned’ from a “Liberal Parliamentary Democracy” into a classic “Police State.”
The Public Health Act 1984 was enacted to allow magistrates powers to restrict the movement of infected sailors or passengers and cargo coming from the docks.
This is the same act Boris and his tyrannical Ministers are using to keep us imprisoned in our own homes!
There is no mention in this Act of Ministers being able to Lockdown anyone, let alone the whole of England!
Millions of jobs, mortgages, marriages and even lives have been destroyed by our corrupt regime at Westminster and they are still pressing ahead, causing even more hardship to millions of hard-working people based on 100% total lies! .
We want to show the government and media establishment up for the lying, freedom-stealing crooks that they are and win back FREEDOM for every man, woman and child in England.
The only legal case now between the English People and the Orwellian society the elites want to impose upon us is the case that I am acting in, with Stephen Morris, the English Democrats’ National Party Secretary and Dr Niall McCrae against the ruling elites that have imposed this lockdown on our people!
Our case is simple: The Lockdown is unconstitutional under the English Constitution and in particular under the English Bill of Rights 1688.
Please help us as much as you can, the future of our democracy and our ancient liberties hangs in the balance and your support can and will make a massive difference! I invite you to do the right thing and strike a blow against the power-crazed politicians by donating…”
-Robin Tilbrook.
Party Chairman
Really glad to see this being mentioned.
I really share the worry about this type of lockdown being considered a normal reaction to any resurgence in covid. But i even worry about it becoming considered a normal reaction to seasonal pressures in the NHS
Absolutely right. The past ten months has seen the Government testing the limits of what they can get away with, and I suspect they are quite surprised to have got this far.
Lockdown will now become the routine reaction to any crisis – real or, if necessary, invented.
What an hysterical response. Any crisis? Really?
Yes. Over here they’ve already started the propaganda machine for next winter’s expected flu surge, owing to this year’s low exposure. There will also be another bout of covid.
Abraham Lincoln’s legacy is tarnished by his suspension of habeas corpus. Despite all the good he’s done and freeing slaves. Today’s leaders would do well to remember that.
It is not a normal reaction by NHS to seasonal pressures. Most seasonal pressures go un-noticed because the NHS deals with them in the main. Get over the fact the Covid is here. Can we all try to deal with it?
The government’s response to the virus has been a combination of insanity and tyranny. But one expects nothing else from these people, all over the world, and whatever the party in power.
The electoral system has failed as you only have two parties. In a proportional voting system you give voice to smaller parties. This would have been useful in the covid debate to get some counter views rather than labour rubber stamping. And….for the thousand time, sweden didn’t have lockdowns and they have fewer deaths per capita than uk. Lockdowns make no difference. Early border closures has been the only mitigating strategy but without vax….where next?
There are plenty of proportional representative governments out there that have responded in exactly the same way. Sweden is essentially the only outlier in western democracies and you’re right on that. While they can’t definitively point to a better outcome (health wise) it is certainly no worse than others.
Is it really necessary to have the lengthy disclaimer that Wagner is not some frothing “right-winger” before getting to what he (and numerous others across the spectrum) have said about the folly of lockdowns? Being prevented by govt action from making a living sounds bad. So does house arrest as do efforts to prevent healthy people from being around other healthy people. Whether these are threats to human rights is an interesting topic, but that they are gross violations of govt should not even be up for discussion anymore.
That dog walker in USA shot casually by a mugger in the news (Daily Mail) was out of prison, released awaiting trial for a string of horrible crimes, because of covid. The criminals are free, the citizens locked down.
And yes, you do not have to show he is not Right-wing because his job is exclusively far left, Human Rights. He says you when restrict freedoms and it becomes normalized – No it does not. But when those Human Rights industry hired guns make freedoms utterly permissive, well they become normalized – as we see in illegal immigrants, now called undocumented aliens. Murders not extradited be cause they will run the risk of being persecuted in their country.
I can think of nothing lower than a ‘Human Rights’ lawyer, all the rights needed are in the USA constitution, and in UK laws and common law. That these are twisted to allow the decent citizens to become prey of not decent seems to be their primary job.
Also, mentioning how dreadful it is of how many people are dying every day is another reason why the population is undone with fear. the average in 2019 for example was 10,200 (approx) deaths per week. All cause mortality. People die, when has that never been so?
I share the sentiment, but 604,707 died in UK in 2019 – more like 11,600 per week.
Is there not too much of a focus on death rates when discussing the necessity of lockdowns? We are currently in a full national lockdown and seeing our nation’s health service at breaking point. Even if you believe that a more targeted approach of advising those at most risk to shield would be more appropriate (however effective that may be ), surely we would see hospital admissions even higher than they are now? Would that be acceptable with our current capacity?
Considering the billions that have been borrowed and spent on mass testing healthy people, furlough etc it is hard not to wonder what could have been achieved if that kind of investment had been channeled into the health service and care for the elderly.
From the King’s Fund:
‘The total number of NHS hospital beds in England, including general and acute, mental illness, learning disability, maternity and day-only beds, has more than halved over the past 30 years, from around 299,000 in 1987/88 to 141,000 in 2018/9, while the number of patients treated has increased significantly.
Most other advanced health care systems have also reduced bed numbers in recent years. However, the UK has fewer acute beds relative to its population than many comparable health systems.’
Over the past thirty years our population has grown by several million. During the pandemic around 10,000 beds were removed to enable safe distancing. Add to this the fact that around 30k staff are off ill or in isolation and it is a wonder that the NHS is coping so well. I stand to be corrected but surely locking up the population, putting millions out of work, exacerbating a mental health crisis etc etc is not the best way to go about helping the NHS cope.
Spot on, but I think there are 53,000 currently off work either ill or isolating. And there are 80,000 vacancies. Whilst funding is an issue, I think there might be 1 or 2 management issues!
> Considering the billions that have been borrowed and spent on mass testing healthy people, furlough etc it is hard not to wonder what could have been achieved if that kind of investment had been channeled into the health service and care for the elderly.
I totally agree here. Spending all that money on building the nightingale hospitals without having the staff to man them was ludicrous.
I think the key point though is in the King’s Fund quote you posted. We have an abysmally low capacity for critical care in this country, and we can’t magic up critical care nurses. We very likely should have spent the last year training up critical care nurses in time for this second wave. Some critical care nurses in the first wave had up to 6 patients each to look after, when it should usually only be 1. To me, this shows that lockdown is required.
I’m surprised that there are so few comments about Adam Wagner’s principal point – the shocking lack of diligence by our Parliamentarians. Whatever the merits or otherwise of the measures imposed on us (and I am most definitely in the “otherwise” camp), the real scandal is the lack of any effective challenge or even response to these fundamental attacks on freedoms we believed were unassailable.
That’s been an issue in almost all U.S. states as well. (That is where these sweeping emergency powers reside in the U.S. system. A U.S. president doesn’t have sweeping emergency powers, but U.S. governors and mayors do.)
These laws are clearly intended for short-term orders during events such as a local natural disaster (hurricane, earthquake, etc.) or rioting, and that’s how they’ve historically been used. We’re now at about 10 months of such orders (dating to March 2020). It’s well past the point where legislators in every U.S. state should be on record voting for or against specific emergency measures.
Exactly. Even worse, in many cases it is not an ELECTED official who is making the decision/order to lockdown, but an unelected medical advisor to the governor. And there is essentially no right to due process to resist this. In my state, the legislature passed a law making the lockdowns etc illegal, but the governor vetoed it.
A Cabinet minister expresses admiration for “Napoleonic” methods? OMG. That is all you need to know. The Western societies will not be able to heal themselves of the lockdown evil until the people responsible for imposing lockdowns — what a word! — are swept out to sea. They must go. There must be a mass repudiation of them. Adam Wagner, btw, is a figure whom Maggie would regard as “wet.” Not at all impressive, not up to the job. “Human rights” do not exist in the abstract. They are the result and flower of (democratic) processes. When these are abrogated, there isn’t much left except fear and unhinged government bullying.
I once had a good beating at the hands of government people (they gave me an attitude adjustment I likely needed) and outraged went on about my rights and so on for a week, till telling some hard, ex-military guy, about it all in a bar, and all my ‘rights’, and being too whiny, and he grabbed me and said ‘Shut up. You have two rights, the right to die, and the right to live till you die – the rest is privilege given by your society’
I learned a lot that day and we got drunk together discussing rights and the US Constitution.
Unfortunately there are too many idiots like that military guy who believe that might makes right.
Look around you. We have diapers on our faces and they closed down travel, the arts, music, etc. Might makes right. This is the way it is going to be from now on. This is the “new normal”. Get used to it.
Hi Freddie
Any chance to interview Reiner Fuellmich?
What struck me was that he never answered the basic question which is this:
How can a minority of the population be protected from an “irrational” majority?
He seems to suggest that we simply have to accept today’s whims of the masses funnelled through politicians. This seems an outrageous position to hold for a human rights lawyer and Freddie rightly tried to press him on this.
His answer could be used to justify almost any government action against individuals. For example the Chinese could use his argument to say that the treatment of Uighurs could be justified in that they pose an objective risk to the wellbeing to the rest of the Chinese population unless they are “reconditioned” (ie for the wellbeing of Chinese society as a whole – no doubt this is supported by the Han majority).
The other point is that although he stated that he wanted to stay in his “box”, he repeatedly justified his relative “silence” based on “facts” derived from domains outside his expertise. He was correct to see this as a danger but found it impossible to justify his own position without going outside his box and citing numbers that he has no expertise in gathering or analysing.
If he had stayed in his box, he would have found his position untenable.
His answer should have been that we need a bill of rights of some sort that is sacrosanct. Something that is drawn up outside the heat of a crisis ready to protect our rights during a future crisis.
Or that more action should have be taken to the courts. But he seemed to think that the courts wouldn’t be interested which I find most strange and begs the question: what would it need for the courts to step in and protect the rights of the minority when they are being abused at the behest of the majority?
Listening to his process arguments, its almost as if he would find it acceptable if parliament decided that forced quarantine was necessary, it would be ok. The decisions cannot be left to politicians precisely because they are at the beck and call of the majority. There must be principles that politicians cannot override.
Freddie was right to call out all these part time virtue hunters that, had the conditions we currently find ourselves under appeared elsewhere at another time, would have splashed their indignity all over the Guardian.
I recognise that that Adam Wagner is fighting the battle that he thinks he can fight but he’s simply not outraged enough (and that is because he is personally doing some internal calculus much like all of those other Guardian stalwarts).
We cannot rely on this majority calculus when dealing with civil liberities.
What struck me was that he never answered the basic question which is this:
How can a minority of the population be protected from an “irrational” majority?
He seems to suggest that we simply have to accept today’s whims of the masses funnelled through politicians. This seems an outrageous position to hold for a human rights lawyer and Freddie rightly tried to press him on this.
His answer could be used to justify almost any government action against individuals. For example the Chinese could use his argument to say that the treatment of Uighurs could be justified in that they pose an objective risk to the wellbeing to the rest of the Chinese population unless they are “reconditioned” (ie for the wellbeing of Chinese society as a whole – no doubt this is supported by the Han majority).
The other point is that although he stated that he wanted to stay in his “box”, he repeatedly justified his relative “silence” based on “facts” derived from domains outside his expertise. He was correct to see this as a danger but found it impossible to justify his own position without going outside his box and citing numbers that he has no expertise in gathering or analysing.
If he had stayed in his box, he would have found his position untenable.
His answer should have been that we need a bill of rights of some sort that is sacrosanct. Something that is drawn up outside the heat of a crisis ready to protect our rights during a future crisis.
Or that more action should have be taken to the courts. But he seemed to think that the courts wouldn’t be interested which I find most strange and begs the question: what would it need for the courts to step in and protect the rights of the minority when they are being abused at the behest of the majority?
Listening to his process arguments, its almost as if he would find it acceptable if parliament decided that forced quarantine was necessary, it would be ok. The decisions cannot be left to politicians precisely because they are at the beck and call of the majority. There must be principles that politicians cannot override.
Freddie was right to call out all these part time virtue hunters that, had the conditions we currently find ourselves under appeared elsewhere at another time, would have splashed their indignity all over the Guardian.
I recognise that that Adam Wagner is fighting the battle that he thinks he can fight but he’s simply not outraged enough (and that is because he is personally doing some internal calculus much like all of those other Guardian stalwarts).
We cannot rely on this majority calculus when dealing with civil liberities.
There is an unprecedented implementation of unjustified mandates in the world. The assault and ridicule against any disapproving criticism is very much a greater problem than the legislative misfortune as argued by the interviewee. The legal aspect is indeed serious but the attack on any serious argument regardless of origin, is a deeply untihuman action. The media compliance with a religious truth of a centrally guided science in accordance with power-thirsty politicians are effectively pushing the world into chaos and catastrophe. The “fresh” idea in the market for some decades, of a “Darwinian Jungle” where the stronger survives and consumes the lesser, is now paradoxically combined with a post-christian hypocritical nostalgia of justice and love for the community and the many. Such an irony.
We were caught in surprise of how all this was ever possible to take place. However, we had for so many years liked the jungle ourselves. Now, that the hunters have released their rage against us, we slide aside the battle of our own greed and give them full power of the game. For the survival instict -not actual fear of covid- often works in the most hideous ways of self loathing and dismay.
May God have mercy on us. The great miracle of life cannot be undone by any misfortune, fear, agony or hate. Life will prevale against all odds. We, the small ones, will for ever pray and act for the prevalence of goodness. No matter how decadent we may be, we will not give up the fight of life and light. It is the nature of things. Despite our semi-rotten ways we shall stand against the darkness.
For life is light..💥
Freddie Sayers’s interviews continue to be much the best balanced and even-handed treatment of COVID and the lockdowns anywhere.
One of the big concerns for human freedom that could emerge from this pandemic would be a big drive to improve contact tracing using mobile apps, which has not been very effective in Canada and perhaps not in the UK either. However, mobile apps could become substantially more effective if all citizens were forced to use the same app and it became a criminal offense not to be wearing one. This would be the Panopticon state in all its glory, where all citizens could be tracked more completely than Winston Smith ever was. However, faced with a virus deadlier than COVID, and one could well emerge, the UK and other democracies might well go there.
Actually, what we need is to recreate the hospital infrastructure we had 30 years ago instead of spending all our resources on pharma junk – that’s the first lesson (unfortunately in Downing Street for at least 3 decades they’ve loved the pharmaceutical industry). Otherwise we might have to decide whether life is worth living at all. It is also true that people tend to die as they get older but a present problem is that they also take more and more medications, many of which are immunity lowering. Doctors like James Le Fanu, and David Healy have warned against it, and this may be as significant as co-morbidities. A lot of Bill Gates generated talk about the next pandemic is clinically superficial and based on social control, rather than forgotten or actively suppressed knowledge.
As it is we’ve had this immense rush to provide vaccines without a clue whether they are effective or safe. If we are going to learn anything this is certainly the scenario we do not want to replicate. And we are also paying tens of billions for failed track and trace when what we needed was infectious disease hospitals, vitamins and probably a few old medicines which don’t cost anything.
So well said! Thank you for echoing my thoughts exactly. 🙂
Thanks Elizabeth – it needs a lot of knowledge and experience (and resistance) to see through it all.
Every now and then I have a wee chat with a nearly retired nurse from my street and she keeps telling me how well things were done back in the 80’s, specially the flu epidemics and the ways they had to isolate whole floors for those infected
Many months ago Tom Jefferson mentioned in one of Freddie’s interviews the extreme unwisdom of treating infectious respiratory diseases in towers and yet no attempts were made it seems to re-arrange the hospital system during the summer to avoid this. The HCQ trials ended in inconclusive scandal. Vitamin D continues only to be offered at levels which make little difference. Ivermectin is getting rave reviews from around the world but the government will no doubt puts its use on hold for many months, though the risks involved are probably much less than the vaccines.
What happens if the industry doesn’t get its bonanza? Boris Johnson will be in the corner with a dunce’s cap with his friends (checkout his speech to the GAVI London conference in June or his speech to the UN General Assembly in September). You can find these things on-line but they are not the subject of the mainstream media, they are not even the subject of LockdownSceptics or Unherd. The foolish man probably doesn’t even understand how he is being strung along, but he does understand information about it has to be micro-managed out of existence.
The UK civilian death toll during all six years of the Second World War was 67,000. In less than a year Covid has killed substantially more – one and a third times as of today and it’s not going to stop anytime soon. The mindset we should all adopt, if we are concerned with human life, is that we are at war. No ifs, no buts. We are at war. The niceties can go. Until I know that I and my family are safe, I am happy to be in any sort of lockdown. (Three members of my extended family have died.) No point in arguing for human rights when human life itself is so vulnerable. I bet that all those who get on their anti-lockdown hobby horse have a) not lost someone they love and b) have never been in a situation of war.
This is the dumbest comment I have ever read. The civil war killed children and healthy alike and why do you only pick civilian deaths. Young men the prime of their life were killed in huge numbers. Only deaths over 45 are statistically relevant. After a bad spring and a small resurgence the worst is nearly over. If the healthcare system wasn’t run so poorly a lot move lives could have been saved too. Instead panic and hysteria led hospital dysfunction and the elderly and most vulnerable purposely left to die in nursing homes. Nobody even tried to save them. https://www.euromomo.eu/gra…