UK would be outlier with Russia if it left ECHR, Law Society says

Rowena Mason

 Whitehall editor

THE GUARDIAN
Wed, 9 August 2023 

Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images

The UK would be an international outlier along with Russia and Belarus if it left the European convention on human rights, a leading law body has warned, after a senior minister signalled that the move could be an option to stop small boat crossings.

Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, said the government would do “whatever is necessary”, even if that meant pulling out of the ECHR, the 70-year-old pan-European treaty that protects human rights and political freedoms in the continent.

His comments are an escalation of the government’s previous statements that leaving the ECHR was not an immediate step it was going to take. It has insisted that it can deliver on Rishi Sunak’s pledge to “stop the boats” within the convention.


But the Conservatives could dial up their rhetoric against the ECHR in order to create a dividing line with Labour before an election, with senior MPs telling the BBC they thought Sunak could fight a campaign pledging to leave.

The Law Society, the professional body for solicitors in England and Wales, said small boat crossings by asylum seekers “will not be tackled by leaving an extremely successful international agreement designed to protect individual rights and support political stability”.

Related: Battle over Rwanda deportations to continue as No 10 gears up for appeal

Lubna Shuja, its president, said: “Leaving the ECHR would mean the UK would sit as an outlier in Europe, alongside only Russia and Belarus, who are already outside the convention.

“This would be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, when the government already has a perfectly good nutcracker it can use.”

The Law Society said bringing down the case backlog for asylum applications and tackling issues with the Illegal Migration Act would be the way to address problems with the system.

Human rights groups also expressed alarm. Sile Reynolds, head of asylum advocacy at Freedom from Torture, said leaving the ECHR “will not correct any of the failings of this government that have led to the record backlog in asylum claims, or the continued loss of life in the waters around Europe”.

Charlie Falconer, the Labour peer who was justice secretary in Tony Blair’s government, says Jenrick’s suggestion was yet another example of the “deliberate undermining of the law and lawyers by the government”, following the government attacking “lefty” members of the profession for failures in their own immigration policy.

The government’s plan to send people to Rwanda for processing of their asylum claims is still facing a supreme court battle. The first flight was stopped at the 11th hour in June last year after an appeal to the European court of human rights, which ensures that the rights enshrined in the convention are upheld by its 46 signatory countries. It is separate from the EU, which the UK voted to leave in 2016.

There are already calls from some within the Conservatives to withdraw from the ECHR. Suella Braverman, the home secretary, who is also a lawyer, has previously expressed a view that the UK should leave.

On Times Radio, Jenrick would not rule out withdrawal from the convention, saying the government would do “whatever is necessary”. “You can see from the prime minister, the home secretary and myself, our total commitment to this challenge,” he said.

Related: Downing Street backs Tory deputy chair over ‘back to France’ comments

“That’s why we’re working on every possible front. That’s why we have produced the most comprehensive plan, I believe, of any European country to tackle this issue. And we’ll do whatever is necessary, ultimately, to defend our borders and to bring order to our asylum system.”

Pressed directly on whether that could include leaving the ECHR, he said: “We will do whatever is required, take whatever necessary action is needed.”

Later on Wednesday, a No 10 source sought to dampen the suggestion that the UK would leave the ECHR. “Our stop the boats act will deliver the changes necessary to reduce the incentives for people to risk their lives through illegal crossings while remaining party to the ECHR,” the source said.

“Our world-leading partnership with Rwanda will work alongside this as part of our plan to stop the boats.

“The court of appeal was clear that the policy of relocating asylum seekers to a safe third country for the processing of their claims is in line with the refugee convention and we remain confident in the legality of the partnership. Our focus is now on next steps and our appeal.”

Jenrick gave his assessment as he announced that the government had struck a deal with Turkey to focus on coordinated actions to “disrupt and dismantle” people-smuggling gangs.

On Tuesday night the government announced the establishment of an operational “centre of excellence” by the Turkish national police and supported by the UK. The centre would aim to strengthen collaboration between the National Crime Agency and Home Office intelligence staff based in Turkey and their Turkish counterparts, the British government said.

UK
Starmer challenged over would-be MP’s Greenpeace links


David Hughes, PA Political Editor
Tue, 8 August 2023

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has been challenged by the Tories to ban members of “eco mob” Greenpeace from standing for the party.

Energy Security Secretary Grant Shapps issued the demand after it emerged Labour’s candidate in Mid Bedfordshire, Alistair Strathern, was part of a zombie-themed publicity stunt in Westminster.

The Government has cut engagement with Greenpeace after the environmental group staged a protest at Rishi Sunak’s house.

Mr Strathern hopes to win Mid Bedfordshire for Labour when Tory former cabinet minister Nadine Dorries finally quits Parliament, as she promised to do in June.

The Sun newspaper revealed he had been part of a Greenpeace demonstration against the Government’s public order legislation in November 2022.

He was pictured in zombie make up outside the Home Office and the Houses of Parliament.


It is believed to be the only publicity stunt Mr Strathern joined for the group and he has never been party of any direct action.

Mr Shapps said: “Labour have gone too far this time – plotting to put eco-fanatics in Parliament.”

In a message to Sir Keir he said: “I’m challenging you to today ban members of the eco-mob from Labour’s candidate list.”

Labour candidate Alistair Strathern (PA)

Home Secretary Suella Braverman said: “A vote for Labour is literally a vote for the eco-zealots.”

Labour sources dismissed the criticism from ministers and the party has previously condemned Greenpeace for targeting the Prime Minister’s home earlier this month.

A Labour Party spokesperson said: “The people of Mid Bedfordshire are sick of being taken for granted by the Tories and it’s time for change.

“They deserve an opportunity to elect a local, hardworking, full time MP, and that is exactly what Labour is offering.”

UK

RECENT TORY CABINET MINISTER
Tory peer Zac Goldmith says he could be tempted to back Labour on climate

Aubrey Allegretti 

Chief political correspondent

THE GUARDIAN
Wed, 9 August 2023



A Conservative peer and close ally of Boris Johnson has hinted he could be “very tempted” to back Labour and questioned Rishi Sunak’s commitment to tackling the climate crisis.

Zac Goldsmith, the former climate minister, raised concerns at the drive in some quarters of the Conservative party to re-examine achieving “net zero” because of the potential extra cost to consumers at a time of stretched household budgets.

Five weeks after leaving the government in frustration at Sunak’s “apathy” towards environmental issues, Goldsmith said he was “desperately hoping the Conservative party comes to its senses”.

Concerns among environmentally minded Conservatives have increased in the aftermath of the Uxbridge and South Ruislip byelection, which the Tories claimed they narrowly clung on to because of opposition to the extension of London’s clean air zone.

Related: ‘An excuse against Labour’: Uxbridge unconvinced Ulez led to Tory byelection win

In the weeks after, Sunak announced more than 100 drilling licences in the North Sea to “max out” oil and gas reserves, a review into low-traffic neighbourhoods, and defended his continued use of a private jet.

Goldsmith said his party did not have “a clear answer” to what he called the “biggest challenge we’ve ever faced”.

“The simple truth is there is no pathway to net zero and there’s no solution to climate change that does not involve nature, massive efforts to protect and restore the natural world,” he told the BBC’s HARDtalk programme.

He said he was not currently “hearing any of that from the Labour party”, but suggested he could be persuaded to back it.

Goldsmith added: “If there’s a real commitment now, the kind of commitment frankly that we saw when Boris Johnson was the leader, then I’d be very tempted to throw my weight behind that party and support them in any way I could.”

Labour sources indicated they thought it was unlikely Goldsmith would ever try to switch his party allegiance in the House of Lords. They also pointed to his London mayoral campaign against Labour’s Sadiq Khan in 2016, which critics said relied on dog-whistle racism, to suggest he would probably not be accepted into the party anyway.

Goldsmith raised particular concerns about suggestions the government could miss its commitment to spend £11.6bn over five years on international climate schemes in developing countries.

Official warnings have reportedly been made within Whitehall that an already “stretching target” had been turned “into a huge challenge” given underspending in the run up to the 2026 deadline.

Goldsmith, who is a close friend of Johnson, said: “It’s great that the government is saying that they’re committed to 11.6, but mathematically, it is impossible for us to meet that target. Unless the Treasury intervenes, unless the prime minister intervenes, it’s simply impossible.

“If you look at the trajectory of expenditure, in order to fulfil that promise the first year of the next government, which may or may not be this government – it might be the Labour party – will have to spend over 80% of all of its bilateral aid on climate finance and that it obviously is not going to happen.”

Goldsmith has not held his tongue since quitting the government at the end of June. Speaking to the Guardian last month, he criticised several cabinet ministers and accused Sunak of “talking to a particular gallery” of climate-sceptic MPs.

The prime minister has so far remained committed to the net zero by 2050 target, and resisted calls from some Tory MPs for the 2030 ban on new petrol cars to be delayed.

He announced funding for carbon capture projects on a visit to Scotland last week.

Though Sunak said net zero should be achieved in a “proportionate and pragmatic way”, he also said it was important to leave the environment in “a better state than we found it in”.

UK
Opinion

This narrow, win-at-all-costs strategy could take Labour to victory, but not to power

Neal Lawson
Wed, 9 August 2023 

Photograph: Jacob King/PA

How can a party be convincingly leading the polls and still appear so weak? Labour may be 17 points ahead but it continues to behave with all the nervousness of unwelcome gatecrashers at a party.

Here it does no good to be unfair. On some impressive and yet rather cynical scale Labour has worked miracles. It has come back from the dead much quicker than anyone expected. Keir Starmer was meant to be the bridge for the eventual return of Blairite true believers. Under the temporary cloak of Corbynism-without-Corbyn, the plan was not to win but to snatch the party back – a first step, and one that counted on another electoral failure as an inevitability, given the scale of Labour’s 2019 loss.

What no one saw coming was the utter collapse of the Tory governing project, first via Boris Johnson and then Liz Truss. Rishi Sunak, thus far, seems unable to do much but prolong the agony. Probable victory is being handed to Labour on a plate – and herein lies the problem.

A schism is opening within Labour between those who believe winning the next election under almost any circumstances is the only objective of the next 18 months of politics, versus those that want electoral success but with a purpose and a mandate.

The two sides stare at each other aghast. “How could you not see winning is everything?” decries one camp – nothing matters more than getting rid of the terrible Tories. This strategy provides the smallest possible target for the Tories and their media allies to take aim at. A victory based on this strategy would be an unprecedented success story given the scale of 2019’s defeat. So why does it feel that outside a narrowing leadership circle, so few party members and supporters seem happy with this state of affairs?

On the other side of this minimalist stance is a deep and profound worry that while electoral success is necessary, it is far from sufficient. Electoral success at any cost simply ties the hands of any incoming government. Set against enormous environmental and economic challenges, the looming danger is that Labour could be busy constructing a cage for itself from any victory that relies on Tory ineptitude.

If Labour wins office but fails to capitalise on the opportunity, the fear is not just that progressive politics will be damaged, perhaps irrevocably, but that people start to turn away from democracy itself.

In the short term, even attempting to win on this narrow ticket is fraught with danger. If everything rests on continued governing failure, what happens if the Tories stop failing? What if the economy ticks upwards enough, and their relentless anti-woke and anti-boat agenda takes hold? Labour has too little to come back with.

Labour or a Labour-led alliance must win office, but it also needs to be in power. Being in office means taking executive decisions, being in power is the wherewithal to decisively intervene and transform the country. Such power is based on a vision for change, a mandate to achieve it, the deep-rooted policies and institutions that can oversee the gradual but systematic transformation of our economy and society, and the alliances to defend and promote the politics of big change. By luck, all the above helps Labour electorally too.

Instead of an either/or approach to office and power, Labour needs to adopt a both/and position. Here we should make a plea for the return of the much-maligned word “pragmatism”. A pragmatic politics is an approach that evaluates theories or beliefs in terms of the success of their practical application. To be pragmatic is to know where you want to go but act cannily to get there.

Pragmatic politics is about starting where people are, connecting or reconnecting with them, but knowing in a profound sense where you want to take them. It’s about the steady building blocks of change so that gradually, step by step, progressives become stronger, winning over people and political ground. It is a base to build from, not a deep hole to get out of.

Governments alone are not powerful. Just look at the Tories with their 62-seat majority. Ideas and movements are powerful and can be transformative when they chime with emerging cultures, technology and elected office. Just being there is not enough. Starmer says he wants to fix things, not theorise. But fix what, for whom and how? These are deeply political decisions that demand hard thought and profound answers.

Of course, this is not easy. It is neither impossibilism nor capitulation and therefore requires deep strategic thought and planning, which appears to be somewhat lacking.

I should know, I’ve been here before. After the soul-crushing 1992 defeat, I too slipped dreamlike into the false comfort of the win-at-any-cost camp. But New Labour was the product of more profound loss, not just that 1992 election defeat, but the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, the defeat of the miners in 1985, of socialist hope. In such systemic and disorientating loss, the only salvation seemed to be electoral victory, at any cost.

There I slept until a double epiphany in the shape of sociologists Stuart Hall and Zygmunt Bauman woke me from my slumber and set me back on the long road to power with a deep purpose.

And I’ve been here more recently still. In the wake of the Jeremy Corbyn leadership victory in 2015, I remember a young activist telling me not to raise questions, or dredge up difficult problems. Instead, they said, I should just believe and support the new leader. At that early moment I knew the Corbyn project would struggle.

Labour is running for high office, but it feels too much like it is running from everything, from the climate catastrophe and the fact so many cannot afford the cost of living. It is running from itself and its lack of depth and confidence.

As Labour shrinks its offer and its base before it’s even in office, it feels as if some who lead it can only look down, never up. This spells disaster. An improbable victory is being handed to Labour on a plate – but the gruel is thin. Too thin.

Neal Lawson is director of the cross-party campaign organisation Compass

Labour accuses government of losing £250bn from value of UK assets

Phillip Inman

THE GUARDIAN
Wed, 9 August 2023

Photograph: Ian Forsyth/Getty Images

Labour has accused the government of “catastrophic financial mismanagement” and claimed it has “lost” £251bn from the value of assets created to rescue the banking sector after the 2008 financial crash.

The party said analysis of recently published figures showed that a decline in the value of the Bank of England’s assets – over which the Treasury acts as a guarantor – was a huge loss to taxpayers, “equivalent to 10% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022, or the entire GDP of Scotland and Wales combined”.

In a report assessing the impact on the exchequer, Labour said the problem began when Rishi Sunak was chancellor in 2020 and worsened in the aftermath of former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s disastrous mini-budget in September last year.

Labour said the figures were “slipped out” last month in the Treasury’s annual accounts for 2022/23, “one of 108 ‘transparency’ publications issued by the government on 20 July to coincide with the start of the parliamentary recess and the three by-elections held on that day”.

Last year, in the aftermath of Kwarteng’s budget, investors spooked by the prospect of unfunded tax cuts, sold UK government bonds, sending their value plummeting and the interest payable to the highest level since 2008.

Labour’s calculation is based on accounting rules used by public companies that judge the value of assets in the Bank’s £804bn Asset Purchase Facility (APF) based on how much they are worth on a particular day.

Related: Bank of England poised to raise UK interest rates to 5.25%

Rachel Reeves said that bonds purchased by the Bank as part of its quantitative easing programme were a benefit to the Treasury in 2019, making it an asset worth £76.8bn. That was before a sharp reversal by April this year that transformed it into a £177.6bn liability.

“This Tory bond black hole will land working people with another astronomical bill for years to come,” said the Labour shadow chancellor.

The Treasury’s independent economic forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility, and the National Institute of Economic & Social Research (NIESR), have warned that the government’s finances will come under increasing pressure from the sharp increase in interest rates on bonds held by the Bank.

They said the interest payments on bonds held in the APF could soar to £150bn.

“The APF now looks likely to make a loss of some £40bn this year, next year and the year after,” said the head of NIESR, Jagjit Chadha.

“While the costs of this operation must be put against the benefits of stabilising the economy after the financial crisis, the scale of these losses will constrain fiscal space for much of the rest of this decade,” he added.

Richard Murphy, professor of accounting practice at Sheffield University Management School, said the government should refuse to pay the interest on bonds held by UK banks.

Murphy calculated that UK banks held an average of £360bn on deposit with the Bank over the last two years and these deposits will benefit from recent interest rate rises that have taken the Bank’s base interest rate to 5.25%.

He said the UK should follow in the footsteps of the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan, which only pay the headline interest rate on a proportion of bond holdings.

The UK banks could benefit from £18bn a year of the £40bn expected to be paid by the Bank, and reimbursed by the Treasury.

Murphy said: “At a time when austerity is threatened the necessity of making this payment has to be questioned.”

Earlier this year, the German Bundesbank said soaring interest rates meant it suffered a €1bn hit on repayments to bond holders.

Last week, the central bank’s executive board reduce the repayments on domestic government deposits to 0%.

Last year the Bank of England ruled out a similar move saying if the Treasury wanted to claw back interest payments to high street banks, it should impose a windfall tax.

Labour says losses to Treasury bond fund costing £8,900 for every UK household


Martina Bet, PA Political Staff
Wed, 9 August 2023 

A Treasury bond fund has careened from an asset to a liability, with losses so profound that each UK household now faces a staggering burden of £8,900, Labour has said.

Figures show the Treasury fund, originally devised to capitalise on the Bank of England’s quantitative easing programme, has been rapidly eroding over the past three years.

According to Labour, the fund’s decline turned it into the most substantial liability on the Treasury’s balance sheet by the close of March 2023, culminating in a £251 billion loss.

The party says in terms of losses for the taxpayer, it represents a cost of £8,900 for every household in the UK and is 76 times the amount that was lost on Black Wednesday in 1992, when the UK was forced out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism.

It also claimed it is equivalent to 10% of the UK’s gross domestic product in 2022, or the entire GDP of Scotland and Wales combined.

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said: “Families are already feeling the squeeze from what feels like an endless Tory cost-of-living crisis. Now they face yet another hit thanks to the Conservatives’ catastrophic mistakes in managing this fund.

“This Tory bond black hole will land working people with another astronomical bill for years to come.

“And it leaves them paying the price for the failings of successive Tory chancellors: the hubris of George Osborne thinking this fund was a one-way bet, the complacency of Rishi Sunak ignoring the warning signs in the bond market, and the recklessness of Kwasi Kwarteng turning a crisis into a disaster.

“All of them are guilty of putting their short-term political ambitions ahead of the long-term economic interests of the country.

“That will only change when we have a Labour government in place, determined to rebuild the foundations of economic responsibility, and give Britain the more secure, more resilient economy it needs.”

Labour additionally pointed out that the Treasury’s assessment of taxpayer returns over the entire fund’s existence has changed from a net profit of £128 billion by the end of March 2021 to a net loss of £58.8 billion by the end of March 2023.

Established in January 2009 as part of the Bank of England’s quantitative easing effort to aid the UK’s recovery from the global financial crisis, the Asset Purchase Facility (APF) acquired significant sums of Government bonds and other assets from banks, pension funds and finance firms, providing vital liquidity to a stagnant market.

As the economy rebounded and interest rates remained low, Government bonds regained appeal among corporate investors, leading to an increase in the Bank’s asset portfolio’s value.

In 2013, Labour noted, former Tory chancellor George Osborne revised the rules for the APF, ensuring that future profits from the Bank of England’s investments would be directed to the Treasury.

Ms Reeves, who at that point was shadow Treasury minister, warned Mr Osborne at the time that his short-term cash grab from the Bank was no substitute for a proper strategy “to create the jobs and growth we need to get the deficit down”.

The figures were published in the Treasury’s annual accounts for 2022/23 on July 20.

Treasury minister Andrew Griffith said: “The only black hole facing the British people is the £90 billion unfunded spending splurge that Labour would slap on families across the country.

“There’s a world of difference between movements in a long-term bond portfolio versus the certainty of a Labour government spending other people’s money until there is no money left.

“Meanwhile, we are making progress on the British people’s priorities – halving inflation, growing our economy and reducing debt.”

UK

Train drivers vote to continue industrial action in long-running pay dispute


Alan Jones, PA Industrial Correspondent
Wed, 9 August 2023 

Train drivers at several rail companies have voted to continue industrial action in their long-running dispute over pay.

Aslef said the results of new ballots for strikes on passenger services in England and on London Underground showed continued support from drivers.

Mick Whelan, general secretary of Aslef, said: “The results of these new ballots show the determination of our members to win this dispute.

Aslef general secretary Mick Whelan (Yui Mok/PA)


“That’s why I am calling on the train companies, and the Government that stands behind them, to do the right thing and return to the negotiating table with a new offer and prevent more disruption to passengers and businesses in Britain.”

Aslef members at Chiltern, East Midlands, Northern and TransPennine voted in favour of continuing with strikes after being reballoted after six months under employment law.

Drivers at c2c were balloted for the first time and also voted heavily in favour.

Drivers at freight operating company Direct Rail Services also voted in favour of industrial action in a separate dispute over pay.

(PA Graphics)

London Underground drivers also backed industrial action in a reballot in another dispute over pay, pensions and conditions.

Finn Brennan, Aslef’s organiser on the Underground, said: “These huge votes, from the high 90s to 100%, in favour of action, demonstrate just how determined our members are to protect their terms and conditions at work from the effects of the Government’s attack on TfL (Transport for London) funding.

“As always, we are prepared to discuss and negotiate, but we will never accept detrimental changes being imposed on Aslef’s members.”

SCOTLAND

Poll: Independence more important to voters than environment, education or Brexit

National Newsdesk
Wed, 9 August 2023 

Humza Yousaf pictured at the launch of a Scottish Government independence paper earlier this year (Image: PA)

INDEPENDENCE is more important to Scots than the environment, education, housing and Brexit, according to a new poll.

More voters said the constitutional question was a key factor in how they would vote versus other hot topics like schools and the climate, according to research carried out by top pollsters Redfield and Wilton.

The study, carried out between August 5 to 6, found that 22% said their vote would be determined by “Scottish independence/the Union” than housing which was picked by 21%.


Education was the most important issue for 20% of voters with only 18% saying the environment was the key issue at the next election. Just 14% of voters identified Brexit as a key issue.

Among 2019 SNP voters, Scottish independence was the third most commonly selected issue at 31%, behind the economy on 66% and the NHS which was on 64%.

The National:

Support for independence remained steady in Redfield and Wilton’s monthly tracker, with 45% in favour.

Down one point was support for the Union at 48%, which lost ground to the undecided camp.

Independence remained most popular among younger age groups, with 54% of 16-24-year-olds in favour, 62% of those aged 25-34 and 52% among those aged 35-to-44. Older age groups were all majority No voters.

Humza Yousaf’s latest net approval rating is minus 11%, down one point from last month, while Keir Starmer’s stands at 2% - up three points from zero last month.

Rishi Sunak remains deeply unpopular in Scotland, with a net approval rating of minus 28%, down eight points from the last poll.

The Scottish Government is seen as incompetent by 43% of voters, versus 29% who say it is competent.

The UK Government’s ratings are even worse, with 62% saying it is incompetent against just 13% who say it is competent.

College professors sue Idaho over a law that they say criminalizes classroom discussions on abortion

Tue, August 8, 2023 a



BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Six university professors and two teachers’ unions are suing Idaho over a law that they say violates their First Amendment rights by criminalizing teaching and classroom discussion about pro-abortion viewpoints.

The 2021 No Public Funds for Abortion Act prohibits state contracts or transactions with abortion providers and also bans public employees from promoting abortion, counseling in favor of abortion or referring someone to abortion services. Public employees who violate the law can be charged with misuse of public funds, a felony, and be fired, fined and ordered to pay back the funds they are accused of misusing.

The law is “simultaneously sweeping and unclear” and places a “strait jacket upon the intellectual leaders” of Idaho’s public universities, the educators, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho, wrote in the lawsuit.

The case was brought by five University of Idaho professors who teach philosophy, political science, American literature and journalism, as well as a Boise State University professor of social work. Other plaintiffs include the Idaho Federation of Teachers, which represents faculty at UI, BSU and Idaho State University, and the University of Idaho Faculty Federation.

The University of Idaho and Boise State University both warned staffers last year not to refer students to abortion providers or tell them how to get emergency contraception because of the law. The law also sparked questions about the potential impact on other public employees, including journalists for public media outlets.

The educators say the law is vague and doesn’t define exactly what it means to promote or counsel in favor of abortion. As a result, one philosophy professor cut an entire module on human reproduction from her biomedical ethics course because she fears prosecution, the lawsuit states.

Others have significantly altered their course content in a variety of subjects like sociology, law, human reproduction and women in media by pulling reading materials, curtailing lectures and declining to give meaningful feedback on some student research and writing.

Earlier this year, Lewis-Clark State College officials censored several works of art from an exhibit at the school that focused on health care issues. The artists were told that the works were removed from the show because administrators feared they would run afoul of the new law.

The purpose of public universities is to foster an open and robust exchange of ideas on issues of social, legal and political importance, ACLU-Idaho wrote in the lawsuit.

“In Idaho, the legislature has determined these ideals no longer apply to academic inquiry about abortion — one of today’s most urgent social, moral, and political issues," the ACLU wrote.

But the Idaho Family Policy Center, a conservative anti-abortion organization that helped draft and promote the law, took issue with the educators' claims. The law aimed in part to stop university-run health care centers from prescribing abortion-inducing drugs or referring students to abortion providers, the center's President Blaine Conzatti said in a news release.

Conzatti called the lawsuit a “baseless legal challenge.”

“The ‘No Public Funds For Abortion Act’ simply does not infringe on academic speech protected by the First Amendment, including classroom discussion on the topics related to abortion,” he said.

The educators are asking a federal judge to declare the law unconstitutional as it is applied to academic institutions, and to bar the state from enforcing it with respect to speech that promotes or counsels in favor of abortion.

Rebecca Boone, The Associated Press

Carcinogens found at Montana nuclear missile sites as reports of hundreds of cancers surface

Wed, August 9, 2023



WASHINGTON (AP) — The Air Force has detected unsafe levels of a likely carcinogen at underground launch control centers at a Montana nuclear missile base where a striking number of men and women have reported cancer diagnoses.

A new cleanup effort has been ordered.

The discovery “is the first from an extensive sampling of active U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile bases to address specific cancer concerns raised by missile community members,” Air Force Global Strike Command said in a release Monday. In those samples, two launch facilities at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana showed PCB levels higher than the thresholds recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency.

PCBs are oily or waxy substances that have been identified as a likely carcinogen by the EPA. Non-Hodgkin lymphoma is a blood cancer that uses the body’s infection-fighting lymph system to spread.

In response, Gen. Thomas Bussiere, commander of Air Force Global Strike Command, has directed “immediate measures to begin the cleanup process for the affected facilities and mitigate exposure by our airmen and Guardians to potentially hazardous conditions.”

After a military briefing was obtained by The Associated Press in January showing that at least nine current or former missileers at Malmstrom were diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a rare blood cancer, the Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine launched a study to look at cancers among the entire missile community checking for the possibility of clusters of the disease.

And there could be hundreds more cancers of all types, based on new data from a grassroots group of former missile launch officers and their surviving family members.

According to the Torchlight Initiative, at least 268 troops who served at nuclear missile sites, or their surviving family members, have self-reported being diagnosed with cancer, blood diseases or other illnesses over the past several decades.

At least 217 of those reported cases are cancers, at least 33 of them non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

What's notable about those reported numbers is that the missileer community is very small. Only a few hundred airmen serve as missileers at each of the country's three silo-launched Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile bases any given year. There have been only about 21,000 missileers in total since the Minuteman operations began in the early 1960s, according to the Torchlight Initiative.

For some context, in the U.S. general population there are about 403 new cancer cases reported per 100,000 people each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma affects an estimated 19 of every 100,000 people annually, according to the American Cancer Society.

Minutemen III silo fields are based at Malmstrom, F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming and Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota.

Missileers are male and female military officers who serve in underground launch control centers where they are responsible for monitoring, and if needed, launching fields of silo-based nuclear weapons. Two missileers spend sometimes days at a time on watch in underground bunkers, ready to turn the key and fire Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles if ordered to do so by the president.

The Minuteman III silos and underground control centers were built more than 60 years ago. Much of the electronics and infrastructure is decades old. Missileers have raised health concerns multiple times over the years about ventilation, water quality and potential toxins they cannot avoid as they spend 24 to 48 hours on duty underground.

The Air Force discovery of PCBs occurred as part of site visits by its bioenvironmental team from June 22 to June 29 in the Air Force's ongoing larger investigation into the number of cancers reported among the missile community. During the site visits a health assessment team collected water, soil, air and surface samples from each of the missile launch facilities.

At Malmstrom, of the 300 surface swipe samples, 21 detected PCBs. Of those, 19 were below levels set by the EPA requiring mitigation and two were above. No PCBs were detected in any of the 30 air samples. The Air Force is still waiting for test results from F.E. Warren and Minot for surface and air samples, and for all bases for the water and soil samples.

Tara Copp, The Associated Press

Quebec Superior Court can hear case calling on removal of Gov. Gen. due to lack of French

Wed, August 9, 2023 


The court challenge, filed in Quebec Superior Court last summer, argues that Simon, who took over as the Crown's representative in Canada in 2021, cannot hold the position because she does not speak French. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press - image credit)

Quebec Superior Court has the jurisdiction to hear a case calling on Gov. Gen. Mary Simon to be removed from her post because she cannot speak French, according to a Quebec Superior Court judge.

The Attorney General of Canada had tried to argue that only the federal court could look into such a case, but Judge Catherine Piché rejected the claim in June.

The court challenge, filed in Quebec Superior Court last summer, argues that Simon, who took over as the Crown's representative in Canada in 2021, cannot hold the position because she does not speak French — one of the country's official languages.

The plaintiffs, a group of Quebecers, would like to see Simon's appointment invalidated.

Simon, who was educated in a federal day school in Quebec's Nunavik region, says she was not given the opportunity to learn French as a child. She has promised to try to learn it in her position as governor general.

The federal government had filed a declinatory exception, a procedure aimed at having the case heard by another body.

To justify its request, lawyers for the Attorney General of Canada cited section 18 of the Federal Courts Act, which says that "the federal court has exclusive jurisdiction [...] to render a declaratory judgment against any federal agency."

However, the Governor General cannot be considered a federal officer, as she was appointed by Queen Elizabeth II — the predecessor of Charles III — and the Crown is not part of the government, said Piché in a 15-page ruling handed down on June 13.

In this context, "the court is of the opinion that the present case falls within the jurisdiction of the Quebec Superior Court and that the declinatory exception must be rejected," she wrote.

The federal government had 30 days to appeal the judgment. They did not do so, François Boulianne, the plaintiffs' lawyer, said on Tuesday.

The case will be heard by the Quebec Superior Court, with proceedings expected to resume in the fall.

The group that filed the lawsuit was originally led by former Parti Québécois (PQ) leadership candidate Frédéric Bastien, who died a few weeks before the ruling was published. The case is expected to proceed despite Bastien's death.

Quebec court says it can hear challenge to governor general's lack of French

Wed, August 9, 2023 at 10:41 a.m. MDT

MONTREAL — The Quebec Superior Court has ruled that it can hear a challenge to the appointment of Gov. Gen. Mary Simon, who isn't fluent in French.

Several groups are seeking to have Simon's appointment declared null and void because they say the governor general is constitutionally required to communicate in both official languages.

The attorney general of Canada had argued that only the Federal Court could hear the case.

But Justice Catherine Piché said in her June ruling that the appointment of the governor general doesn't fall within one of the specific circumstances that would require the case be heard by the Federal Court.

François Boulianne, the lawyer for the groups challenging Simon's appointment, says he expects the case to return to court in the fall.

Justice pour le Québec, which is taking part in the case, says it will pursue the challenge despite the death in May of its president, Frédéric Bastien, a historian and former Parti Québécois leadership candidate.

"The issue is the principle, it's not Mary Simon herself, it's respect for the Constitution," Boulianne said in an interview.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 9, 2023.