Lobbydog has learnt that shadow attorney general Edward Garnier recently met with Tzipi Livni, the top Israeli politician at the centre of a diplomatic spat last year.
The incident in question erupted after a British court issued an arrest warrant on war crime charges for Livni shortly before she was due to visit the UK.
But at an informal meeting during a trip last week Garnier assured her that the Tories would alter the law so that it could never happen again.
At the moment any magistrate across the country can issue an arrest warrant for anyone in UK territory as long as they believe there is a reasonable case to be answered.
For charges to actually be brought the Attorney General would have to give approval.
But by that time anyone looking to carry out a political stunt, as they were in the Livni case, would have made their point – while at the same time putting world leaders off coming to Britain ever again.
The person who sought the warrant against Livni was a pro-Palestinian Jewish lawyer – who argued that the former Foreign Affairs Minister bore responsibility for war crimes during the Israeli invasion of Gaza.
Garnier told Livni that a Tory Government would tweak the law so that an arrest warrant for war crimes could only be issued with the consent of the Attorney General.
Tory sources say the change would be brought in not because of any pressure or deal, but to stop UK courts being used in political protests.
But Lobbydog suspects the Tories haven’t forgotten about ‘give and take’ during their time in opposition.
The trip, which shadow business secretary Ken Clarke went on too, also saw the Tories visit Teva Pharmaceuticals – one of the biggest manufacturers of generic drugs.
The firm, I’m informed, would be capable of doing the British Government a tidy deal on cheaper drugs for the NHS if it was so inclined.
Thursday, 25 February 2010
Tories meet with Israelis
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5 comments:
Let's hope Garnier is good to his word. And let's also hope that this kind of action will be the shape of things to come. We must drag Britain out of the asylum.
yeah, the more we do to help other countries murder as many people as we do the better.
"The incident in question erupted after a British court issued an arrest warrant on war crime charges for Livni shortly before she was due to visit the UK."
That's because she is, er, a war criminal. The idea that war criminals should be given an opt out of the rules of law and order, and a 'Get Out of Jail Free' card just because they are Israeli seems ridiculous to me.
It would give them carte blanche to kill people outside international law and carry out extra-judicial executions..
Er, hang on...
Israel is a sovereign nation, and it was defending its civilian population from rocket attacks. The recent incident where Palestinian Authority security forces informed Israel of a missile-making factory would probably not have happened had Operation Cast Lead not occurred.
There's one thing that still hasn't happened: the human rights lawyers have not yet explained how they came to be taking instructions to have Ms Livni arrested from Hamas, which is a proscribed organisation in Great Britain because of its links to terrorism.
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