Yesterday, the Labour party released their LGBT manifesto, which aims to challenge the prejudice faced by LGBT people. The manifesto included pledges to strengthen the law on LGBT hate crime and ensuring that there is no discrimination on the basis of sexuality in the education system. These pledges will go a long way to ensuring that we become a more equal society and will change the lives of those who have suffered discrimination because of their sexuality.
However, as a group which has greatly benefitted from our human rights framework, the rights of the estimated 3.6m people or six per cent of the population who are gay, lesbian or bisexual are under threat by Tory proposals regarding the Human Rights Act. The Conservatives and United Kingdom Independence party want to scrap the Human Rights Act, and replace it with a British Bill of Rights, while Labour and the Lib Dems have vowed to keep it. While the Tories at least mentioned LGBT rights in their manifesto, unlike Ukip, their commitment is vague at best.
On the other hand, Labour has pledged to make this one of its central human rights issues. The manifesto has promised to tackle homophobia at home with tougher laws and to champion gay rights abroad. Most importantly, Labour understands that the human rights framework we have at the moment is crucial to safeguard LGBT rights.
The Human Rights Act codifies the protections of the European Convention on Human Rights into British law, enabling people to bring human rights violations against the state to a British court instead of Strasbourg. The Tories claim that they want British courts, not the European Court of Human Rights to have supremacy.
However, we know that the Tories are exaggerating the role of the Strasbourg Court. For example, in 2012 only 10 out of 3,308 cases against the United Kingdom brought to the European Court were found to be in any violation. In other words, only in less than one per cent of cases did the European Court rule against the British courts. Why then, do the Tories wish to dismantle the framework which has helped to increase LBGT rights in the last 40 years?
For example, while England and Wales, in 1967, and Scotland, in 1980, had decriminalised homosexuality, Northern Ireland decided to keep its ban. This was until 1981 when the European Court ruled in Dudgeon v UK that it violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Moreover, the Gender Equality Act was introduced in 2004 after the European Court ruled in 2002 that a transgender woman, Christine Goodwin, should be allowed to get married as a woman after she changed her gender.
Our human rights legislation, which will only be protected by a Labour government, has helped other advances in the rights of LGBT people. For example, in 2000 a European Court ruling found that the Royal Navy had breached the human rights of staff by firing them for their sexuality. This led to a new law which made firing an individual for their sexuality illegal and the practice was stopped by the armed services. This was legislation which was again brought in by a Labour government.
In its manifesto promise, Labour shifts the focus in the UK to tackling homophobia. Legally, LGBT people have the same rights as everyone else but there is still much discrimination against them in society. Shockingly, due to a lack of understanding and acceptance nearly 50 per cent% of transgender people have attempted suicide. A Stonewall (2013) survey also found that one in six people who are gay, lesbian or bisexual have been victims of homophobic hate crimes or incidents over the past three years. Ensuring we have tougher laws which take crimes against LGBT people seriously is a good way of ensuring that those who carry out the crimes are punished, and that they know it is not acceptable in an equal society.
With its proud record on this issue, Labour is also prioritising championing LGBT rights abroad. There are over 75 countries in the world where homosexuality is illegal and 42 of these countries are former British colonies. Incredibly, five countries still carry the death penalty for homosexual activity. A future Labour government should use Britain’s global influence to change this.
The Human Rights Act and the European Court have been vital in protecting and extending LGBT rights in the UK for nearly half a century and have provided much needed pushes for governments to change their attitudes. The Tory attack on a framework which protects the rights of minorities and vulnerable groups shows where their priorities lie, with those who are powerful and not in need of protection. The truth, however, is that human rights shield us all and we never know when we will need their protection. Labour are rightly proud of what they have achieved for LGBT people and will carry on this work at home and abroad should it win the election in May.
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Ailar Hashemzadeh is the Campaigns Officer at Labour Campaign for Human Rights
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