Shami: Human rights trump democracy on abortion laws
LABOUR’S shadow attorney general yesterday demanded Theresa May overhaul Ulster’s abortion laws without holding a referendum – to prove she is a feminist.
Shami Chakrabarti suggested human rights should come before democracy as she called on the Prime Minister to make abortion legal in the province without delay.
But Tories last night accused Labour of trying to use the row to sabotage Brexit by driving a wedge between Mrs May and her DUP allies, whose Commons votes she relies on.
Labour yesterday stepped up its calls for Mrs May to intervene in Northern Ireland in the wake of Friday’s overwhelming vote to make abortion legal in the Republic.
The referendum south of the border leaves Ulster as the only part of the British Isles where it is illegal to have a termination.
Downing Street says it is a decision for the Stormont Assembly, but it has been suspended for the past 18 months following the collapse of the power- sharing deal between the DUP and Sinn Fein.
Baroness Chakrabarti argued that in the absence of the assembly, Mrs May should just impose a change in the law from Westminster.
The Labour frontbencher claimed this should happen without holding a referendum in Northern Ireland.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘This is an issue of fundamental human rights and in fact the situation in Northern Ireland is currently putting the UK Government in breach of its international human rights obligations, so says the UN.
‘So we are calling on Mrs May, a self-identifying feminist, to negotiate with the parties in Northern Ireland and then to legislate without further delay.’
The former human rights campaigner, who was handed a peerage by Jeremy Corbyn after her 2016 report on antiSemitism in the Labour Party was dismissed as ‘a whitewash’, added: ‘ You cannot have democracy without fundamental human rights and the women of Northern Ireland have suffered for long enough.’
A UN committee earlier this year claimed the UK was violating the rights of women in Northern Ireland by restricting their access to abortion. The committee on the elimination of discrimination against women said thousands of women and girls in Northern Ireland faced ‘systematic violations of rights through being compelled to either travel outside Northern Ireland to procure a legal abortion or to carry their pregnancy to term’.
Northern Ireland’s devolved assembly voted against liberalising abortion laws as recently as February 2016.
Tory MP Nadine Dorries yesterday said the row over abortion was being used to antagonise Mrs May’s relationship with the DUP. Since last year’s snap general election, when the Tories lost their majority, the Prime Minister has relied on their ten MPs to pass key legislation, such as on Brexit.
Mrs Dorries said: ‘Northern Ireland has a devolved administration. This means that on economic and social issues, the elected representatives make their own decisions.
‘If the British Government steps in on this issue, where does it stop? Those who are calling for the Government to “push forward” are in fact seizing upon an opportunity to create mischief, knowing full well that should they do so, our formal relationship with the DUP would be under threat and the Government and Brexit process would be destabilised.’
DUP MP Jim Shannon reiterated the party’s strong opposition to making abortion legal in Northern Ireland, adding: ‘It’s still the Northern Ireland assembly – the legislative change still lies with them.’