Recent days have witnessed horrific scenes in the small town of Ballymena in Northern Ireland. There, night after night, rioting thugs have tyrannised men, women and children simply because they come from somewhere else. The shocking scenes remind me of the recent repeated arson attacks on migration accommodation centres across the Republic of Ireland. Both phenomena have been fed at least in part by hateful online disinformation.
These scenes are played out, in one form or another, in many places across Europe. They are the unacceptable but not surprising outcome of years of the disparagement of migrants; their 'othering'. This laying of the blame for social ills on foreigners was long the preserve of an unelectable extreme form of populist politics. However, over time, including with some changes in political fortunes, the othering of migrants has entered the mainstream.
As evidence, I would, until recently point to some media sources as well as to just a few states, particularly regarding the policing of their borders.
But recent weeks saw a worrying turn when nine countries [1] (all of them European Union and Council of Europe member states), on 22 May, published a kind of open letter or statement on the topic of irregular migration. It is carefully phrased, but nevertheless, it weaves a narrative of a loss of control of our borders and puts a focus on the criminality of some migrants.
Turning to human rights, it argues that the balance has gone wrong – that "safety and security for the victims and the vast majority of law-abiding citizens is a crucial and decisive right. And, as a general rule, it should take precedence over other considerations". By "other considerations" the statement presumably refers to, as it puts it, "the protection of the wrong people".
And it is not just referring to criminals, as is evident from the reference to the need to counter hostile states that are, "for example, (..) instrumentalising migrants at our borders".
Having laid out what it sees as the problem, the statement prescribes what is now needed, including, centrally, "a look at how the European Court of Human Rights has developed its interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights", since the Court, "has, in some cases, limited our ability to make political decisions in our democracies. And thereby affected how we as leaders can protect our democratic societies and our populations against the challenges facing us in the world today". More generally, the statement observes that, "it is necessary to start a discussion about how the international conventions match the challenges that we face today. What was once right might not be the answer of tomorrow".
There is so much to repudiate and challenge in the statement of the nine countries. It grossly over speaks the incidence of criminality within migrant communities, it refers not so much as once to refugees fleeing persecution. It posits evidence free claims such as that the European Court of Human Rights makes the protection of our societies more difficult. It disregards how states can pursue legitimate goals like securing our borders without backtracking on respect for human rights.
What is more, it proposes the establishment of a sort of hierarchy of rights-holders, with law abiding citizens in a superior position to "the wrong people".
And all of this is framed in a discourse suggesting that it draws its authority from the will of the people.
Where, I ask, is acknowledgement of article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, whereby, "all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights"? Where is the recognition that the perceived will of the people must always be subject to the rule of law, including the application of the international human rights treaties? Where is the appreciation of the steadfast practice, in Europe at least, for human rights treaty development to always be in the service of strengthened rather than weakened protection of human beings?
As for the will of the people, I do acknowledge that this is a tricky time to govern, with waves of disinformation sweeping across our societies, patterns of deep economic inequality and low levels of trust in political and other institutions. But the answer is not to disavow our values. It is certainly not to pick at the web of human rights protections so laboriously put in place after the horrors of the Second World War.
Instead, governance should be evidence-based, addressing the true root causes of unease. It should also adopt an historical perspective, not only learning from our past but also recognising how an act of today can have appalling future consequences.
It is time to wise-up to how dangerous a moment this is. Today the focus is on migrants; tomorrow it will be another vulnerable minority group; eventually it could be any of us.
I call on the nine governments to reconsider their position. I call on all Council of Europe member states to be steadfast in protecting the human rights of everyone.
[1] Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.