Priti Patel's Statements About Immigration Lawyers Were Ill-Judged And Have Led To A Violent Attack

11/10/2020

Priti Patel caused yet another furore this week with further comments about immigration, claiming 'activist lawyers' were frustrating the removal of migrants. Just four days after her comments, on 7 September, a man entered a London law firm with a large knife and launched a “violent, racist attack” that injured a staff member. The assailant was overwhelmed before he could continue his attack any further.

Patel has frequently said things that should lead to frank discussions with her boss, the Prime Minister, but BoJo seems content to ignore such things so long as his senior team members support him and keep on tugging their forelocks. The knife attack led to firm, which is not being named due to security concerns, writing to the Law Society to express the opinion that Patel's comments were directly responsible for the incident.

Last Sunday, almost a month after the knife attack, Patel used her speech at the Conservative party conference to target “do-gooders” and “lefty lawyers,” claiming those who represented asylum seekers were “defending the indefensible”. Then, just two days later, Johnson used his keynote speech to claim that the entire criminal justice system was “being hamstrung by lefty human rights lawyers”.

It seems that Johnson and Patel have embraced the extreme approach of Trump politics; aggressively blaming others for issues of their own making and failing to denounce racists and white supremacists when they respond to the disgusting comments made.

Details of the attack, including witness statements, have suggested that:

“Responsibility and accountability for this attack, in the eyes of this firm, lies squarely at the feet of Priti Patel.”

The day after the incident, the firm wrote to the Law Society asking it to raise the issue with Patel, government lawyers, the lord chancellor and the Ministry of Justice to “ensure that public attacks on the legal profession are prevented from this point forth”.

“It must be ensured that no further lives are endangered as a result of her untruthful and deliberately inflammatory rhetoric. Put simply, this must stop now, before innocent lives are taken and other irreparable damage is done to those who work in this field.”

The letter also stated: “This must involve all previous statements made by Priti Patel being publicly retracted, and an apology or acknowledgment that such action to date has been inappropriate. Urgent reassurance is required from the government that this will not be repeated. The position as it stands is untenable, dangerous, and cannot be allowed to persist.”

However, as referred to above, neither Patel nor Johnson seem to have acknowledged their failures and it seems that further action is required in order to bring an end to such unwarranted comments.

Whatever your politics, I would hope that you would agree that the comments by Patel and Johnson have been dangerous and, having led to an attack by a right wing extremist (who apparently had both a confederate flag and far-right literature with him at the time of the assault), need to lead to a retraction and an apology.

At this point, it seems that neither are being offered.