Background
In July, following a general election, the Conservative Party, which had been in power for 14 years, was replaced by a Labour Party administration. As a result, some policies that constituted serious threats to human rights were dropped or altered. In August, days of racist violence occurred in towns across England and Northern Ireland. This occurred against a backdrop of sustained anti-asylum seeker rhetoric from figures in politics and the media and the implementation of government policies that collapsed the asylum-processing system and damaged social cohesion. The violence was incited through misinformation, discriminatory speech and advocacy of hatred on social media following the killing of three children in the town of Southport by an attacker who was falsely identified as an asylum seeker and a Muslim.
Refugees’ and migrants’ rights
In April the Safety of Rwanda Act passed into law. This sought to overturn a 2023 Supreme Court ruling that Rwanda was not a safe country to send people seeking asylum, and suspended or overrode a wide range of rights protections. It followed the Illegal Migration Act 2023 by implementing a wider policy, enforced by that act, of refusing to process asylum claims made in the UK. However, following the change of government, the scheme to enable the enforced removal of asylum seekers to Rwanda was scrapped and regulations were passed suspending the effect of the Illegal Migration Act. The new government announced its intention to clear the backlog of asylum claims that had built up under the previous policy and also announced the decommission of an ex-prison barge and a former air force base as accommodation for people seeking asylum.
The new government committed to repealing the Safety of Rwanda Act and announced plans to introduce a new Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill. The details of this bill were not publicly available at year’s end, but the government indicated that it would pursue the same aim as the previous government of seeking to prevent and deter people from seeking asylum in the UK, increase immigration detention space and fast-track the removal of people from the UK.
In September, an internal Home Office report was published on the roots of what is known as the Windrush scandal. The report confirmed the racism at the heart of government policy and laws passed by parliament over several decades “to reduce the number of people with black or brown skin” permitted to live in the UK. This resulted in many Black and Asian British people being deprived of their UK citizenship and later being exposed to immigration policies such as forced removal, from which they should have been immune but could not protect themselves.
In October, it was announced that the new government would continue the previous administration’s policy of phasing out physical immigration status documents, to be replaced by purely digital “e-visas”. There were serious concerns that this policy would be exclusionary and transfer control over the evidence of a person’s lawful right to residence and services from the individual to the Home Office.
Irresponsible arms transfers
For the first half of the year, the then government refused to suspend export licences for arms and other military equipment to Israel, including for equipment being used in the conflict in Gaza. In June, UN special experts called on states to end all transfers of military equipment to Israel to avoid the risk of responsibility for human rights violations. In September, the new government partially suspended export licences, citing a “clear risk” of breaches of international humanitarian law by the Israeli military. However, the UK contribution to the F-35 fighter jet, a crucial element in Israeli military activity, was excluded from this suspension. A judicial review into UK government policy on arms export licences was ongoing at year’s end.
Freedom of peaceful assembly
Major and regular street protests continued in the capital, London calling for a ceasefire following the October 2023 Hamas-led attacks in Israel and the subsequent Israeli military response. These protests were subject to some restrictions, but police allowed them to go ahead in the face of considerable political pressure to ban them.
In May, government-issued regulations handing police enhanced powers to impose restrictions on protests on grounds of “serious disruption” were ruled to be unlawful by the Divisional Court. The new government’s appeal against this decision was heard in December.
Environmental protesters engaging in peaceful protests deemed “seriously disruptive” or constituting a “public nuisance”, acts potentially amounting to “contempt of court” or protest involving “criminal damage”, regularly faced imprisonment. In some instances this included very lengthy prison sentences of up to five years.
Freedom of expression
Throughout the year, investigations continued into the nature and extent of surveillance activities by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) on journalists. In December, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal ruled that the PSNI and the Metropolitan police in London had unlawfully surveilled two journalists in 2012 and 2013. In June, an independent barrister-led review of the issue was launched.
Also, throughout the year, the government and other public authorities engaged in a range of conduct that unduly curtailed the right to freedom of expression and had a chilling effect on speech connected to Gaza and Palestine. This included the use of the much criticized Prevent counterterrorism programme, the cancellation of visas and disciplinary proceedings against individuals, with particularly harmful impact on Muslim and racialized school children and young people.
In March, the government published a revised definition of the concept of “extremism”, which was to be used by public bodies to assess individuals and groups as “extremist”, with a view to excluding them from public funds, platforms and other forms of “legitimacy”.
In May, the Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill failed to become law when parliament was dissolved due to the calling of the general election. The bill, which would have made it potentially unlawful for public bodies to reflect human rights and ethical issues in decisions about procurement or their investment of funds, would have stifled calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions.
Right to truth, justice and reparation
In January, the Irish government lodged an interstate case against the UK government at the European Court of Human Rights regarding the Northern Ireland Legacy Act. Two judgments from the Belfast High Court and Northern Ireland Court of Appeal were handed down in February and September, which found the act incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and in breach of the Windsor Framework agreement between the UK and the EU. Among the findings were that the provisions on immunity from prosecution were incompatible with Articles 2 and 3 of the ECHR and Article 2 of the Windsor Framework and should therefore be disapplied. The legacy body established by the act – the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery – was found to be unlawful in relation to participation and disclosure of evidence. The UK government committed to repealing some, but not all, elements of the Legacy Act and signalled that it intended to appeal to the Supreme Court.
LGBTI people’s rights
Throughout the year there continued an extremely hostile media and political climate against trans people. Hate crime against LGBTI people reportedly rose. The government issued guidance to schools not to discuss “gender identity” during sex and relationships education. In November, the Supreme Court heard a challenge brought by a gender critical group seeking to exclude trans people with the UK’s form of legal gender recognition from sex discrimination protections in their legal gender. A judgment had not been issued by year’s end.
In September the Scottish government’s proposal to introduce a comprehensive ban on conversion practices was delayed, with the Scottish government saying it would instead wait for the UK government to introduce a bill. The previous UK government did not deliver a conversion therapy ban because the bill was held up over the debate about the inclusion of trans people. The new government committed to publishing a draft bill, including a full conversion therapy ban, but only aimed at forming the basis for further consultation.
Right to a healthy environment
During COP29 in November, the new government committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by at least 81% by 2035, an increase from the 78% pledged by the previous government. The new government maintained the previous government’s commitment to providing GBP 11.6 billion in climate financing until March 2026, a position rated “highly insufficient” by the Climate Action Tracker.
Economic, social and cultural rights
In January the Children’s Commissioner for Wales criticized the Welsh government’s plan for tackling child poverty, while in March, UK government statistics showed 4.3 million children living in poverty across the UK. The statistics demonstrated a disproportionate impact on children from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds, of whom 47% were living in poverty compared with 24% of white children.
These statistics were followed in October by annual government data showing that levels of homelessness in England had risen 12.3% in a year. Street homelessness, termed “vagrancy”, remained subject to criminal law.
In February, a coalition of civil society groups including Amnesty International highlighted the inadequacy of the standard social security allowance, which was less than the cost of common essentials for a single person.
In March, the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities reported that the UK had failed to meet its obligations across numerous articles of the convention.
In September, the Scottish government dropped plans to introduce a Human Rights Bill. The bill would have incorporated the ICESCR and other international human rights conventions into Scottish law.
Discrimination
In August, the UN CERD Committee recommended, among other things, reforms to immigration legislation, suspension of the Prevent counterterrorism strategy and an end to the use of strip searches of children.1
Sexual and reproductive rights
Despite decriminalization, there remained significant obstacles to accessing abortion care in Northern Ireland, including a lack of early screening for fetal impairments.
In England and Wales, there was an increase in investigations and prosecutions of women accused of having an abortion illegally. A number of trials were scheduled for 2025.
In September, the Scottish government introduced “safe access zones” around hospitals and clinics providing abortion services. A similar law in England and Wales came into force in October.
