I still say he’s done more for actually stopping human rights abuses as a lawyer than Corbyn ever has done, certainly when making pals with human rights abusing dictators. As for Starmer’s position, it should be noted that not all the bill is about letting off soldiers who have committed war crimes. Labour are probably taking the position of abstaining with the aim of making a potential stand if the egregious parts are not removed on the final hearing, which it isn’t at yet. So, if those egregious parts, the parts where the state can abuse human rights, are removed they will push through to allow the acceptable changes. If not, then they will oppose.
I am not yet at the point of calling Starmer into question over this, because political bills are sometimes more complex than presented. I do question the motives of those determined to see the worst possible scenario, especially when the thing they complain about isn’t something they care about elsewhere. If they don’t care about human rights elsewhere, what moral standing do they have to lecture anyone else about how the state must act?
Yes, it wouldn’t change the nature of the wrong, and if the worst elements of this bill are not removed it would be a wrong, but it doesn’t validate their side or show we were better off with the racist granddad who loved to go on visits with Assad and praising Cuba’s medical internationalism scheme, which is nothing more than a PR exercise for the regime and has been described as being akin to slavery.
Those years at CPS and book writing, as you so mock it, have been credited at bringing human rights into greater focus into the legal system. The same rights which Corbynites will defend, yet they will make out that human rights is Corbyn’s strength, when it was anything but.