Conflict and the need for clarity
by Suella Braverman, Artillery Row:
On equalities and rights.
My speech today is about equality and rights, and I’ve titled it, “conflict and the need for clarity”. Despite what our critics might say, rights can be difficult to get right. Sometimes, things that seem clear in the abstract become distorted when they are applied in the real world, with unintended consequences.
That’s when we need clarity. How do we balance the rights of minorities with the rights of majorities? Or the rights of different minorities against one and other? Rights are presented by the left as an inevitable march of progress towards ultimate liberation. But as Conservatives we reject this quasi-religious narrative. We know humans are flawed and changeable and there will never be a perfect framework that solves everything. We also know that tolerance for difference, for robust debate, can sometimes be more appropriate than restricting freedom.
It’s so tempting to see things superficially. Yet all rights, however noble, impose limits and obligations on other people, some with tricky trade-offs.
Should protesters have the right to block the streets? Or block ambulances? How far does a state’s duty to protect its citizens extend vis a vis a foreign national offender’s human right to remain here? Should women have the right to single-sex spaces? Do our feelings about who we are, change the rights to which we are entitled?
There is a now serious risk that the fight for rights undermines democracy and harms the very people for whom the fight was intended to benefit. In the context of a mature democracy — with a responsive and pragmatic common law tradition — is it always right that minority groups impose their claims upon the rest of society? We need to make sure that the costs of protecting rights are worth the pay-off.
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