Farmer, 78, killed himself because he feared Rachel Reeves' inheritance tax raid, coroner concludes, as his distraught children urge Labour to ditch hated policy before more deaths
John Philip Charlesworth, 78, 'wasn't going to let the government beat him' and wanted to pass on the farm 'on his terms', an inquest heard.
Following the verdict of suicide, his family urged the government to rethink the hated policy, under which farms above £1m will be made subject to the tax from next year.
Mr Charlesworth, a farmer all his life and keen church bellringer, was found dead at his farm in Silkstone, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, on October 29, the day before Ms Reeves' budget.
Although struggling with the care of his dementia-stricken wife Carolyn, 73, who died four months later in a care home, son Jonathan and daughter Verity said they believe he would 'still be here' were it not for the 'financial worries over inheritance tax'.
Concluding the inquest in Sheffield, Coroner Tanyika Rawden said: 'He had caring responsibilities and was worried about the implementation of the new form of inheritance tax which could see the family lose 50 per cent of their farm, ultimately causing him to take his life the day before the changes were due to be announced.'
Speaking outside Sheffield Coroner's Court, Verity Charlesworth, 45, urged the government to rethink the inheritance tax raid. She said: 'It's not too late to change before someone else loses their life like my dad.'
Jonathan Charlesworth, 47, who took over the running of the farm prior to his father's death so he could care for his wife, gave a message to the Chancellor, saying: 'If she'd have been here, I would have hoped she would have listened to the evidence. I'd tell her to go out and visit other farms, see them working for £3.50, £5 an hour.
'Government policy caused my dad's death and will no doubt cause more before the tax change comes in in 2026.
'I wish my dad hadn't done it, no land is worth that sacrifice, but it will happen again.
'The policy really wants abolishing or adjusting somehow. At the very least, they need to extend the implementation date. Eighteen months is not long-enough.'
He added: 'It was good to hear the coroner agreed with what we already knew, that it was the inheritance tax that really ended my father's life. If it wasn't for that, he would still be here.'
Mr Charlesworth jr had earlier told the inquest his father knew his wife's condition had worsened to the point she did not have long left.
He said: 'He was certainly having thoughts he would be able to go back to doing stuff on the farm and go back to bell ringing'.
But he added that 'for the six weeks before (his death) the only thing he would ever talk about was inheritance tax and how he was going to deal with it.
'He became very down about the financial burden which could be imposed.'
But Mr Charlesworth added: 'He wasn't going to let the government beat him, he wanted (to leave the farm) on his terms and no one was going to take that away from him.'
'He thought he was doing it for the greater good of us.'
The inquest heard Mr Charlesworth sr had last spoken to his son at 7pm the previous evening. Both lived in neighbouring houses on the farm.
Mr Charlesworth jr found his father in a barn early the next morning after receiving a worried phone call from his uncle and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
A post mortem examination found the cause of death was hanging.
Mr Charlesworth sr's GP, Dr Matthew Teesdale, said he had 'minimal contact' with the surgery apart from treatment for hypertension and atrial fibrillation, a heart condition.
'There was no documented history of mental health issues or suicidal thoughts prior to his death, Dr Teesdale added.
Mr Charlesworth had contact in the days before his death with a mental health team concerning support to help him care for his wife.
They recorded he needed support to 'help him cope with his wife' and was feeling 'anxious' but had 'no suicidal thoughts'. A further visit was planned.
But Ms Charlesworth said: 'It's not something he would say, that he was anxious'.
Her brother added: 'It had got to the stage where he admitted he needed some help (but) he was talking about having a bit of freedom if my mum went'.
Mr Charlesworth jr added: 'I believe my dad took his own life the day before the budget because he believed this would beat the government's inheritance tax proposals and save the farm for future generations.
'It's very sad he believed he would have to take his own life to save his farm.'
After Mr Charlesworth sr's death, a note entitled 'till death do us part' was found at his home setting funeral plans including a poem, his ashes to be scattered in woodland, and for 'no sad songs' or church services.
He had also left a separate note with instructions about the future of the farm and referring to inheritance tax.
Paying tribute to her father, Ms Charlesworth told how farming was 'very much a defining part of his identity'.
Mr Charlesworth sr, from a farming family and who went to agricultural college, had been with Carolyn since they met at teaching college 52 years earlier.
The couple, accompanied by their daughter, were regular bellringers at Silkstone Church, with Mr Charlesworth being tower captain.
'He was a grandfather of six and loved to involve (his grandchildren) with jobs on the farm. He was loved by many and will be sadly missed.'
Mr Charlesworth jr said he had 'taught me everything I know about farming' and would do 'anything for anyone'.
Mr Charlesworth previously accused the Prime Minister of having 'blood on his hands' over the government's inheritance tax raid on farmers.
His father ran a 70-acre farm on the outskirts of Barnsley, South Yorkshire, which had been in his family since the 1950s.
But pre-budget news predicting the tax raid – ending the practice of allowing farmers to pass on estates without inheritance tax - had 'eaten away' at him and was the 'final straw', his son said.
Speaking last October, Mr Charlesworth jr, told the Daily Mail: 'I'm not sure you could publish what I'd say to (Keir Starmer). He's got blood on his hands.
'He's totally destroying an industry we rely on.'
Mr Charlesworth jr, who now looks after the 70-acre farm of sheep and cattle at Silkstone, in the Pennine foothills, himself, added: 'This government has absolutely zero understanding of agriculture let alone how it works.
'They think we're just jumped-up millionaires riding around in Land Rovers but that's not true.
'This government have killed ambition in this country – what's the point of doing well, building up a business, if it's all going to be taken away?'
Mr Charlesworth's son revealed he had spent his final hours writing down his thoughts on how to protect the future of his business from the government's inheritance tax raid before taking his own life.
He found a handwritten note where the Yorkshire farmer had jotted down his ideas for how best to leave the farm to his children.
The musings, left on a clipboard immediately beneath a suicide note, included questions for the family's solicitor covering costs, capital gains tax, protected agricultural exemptions and what gifted assets could be sheltered from inheritance tax under the seven-year rule.
On the budget, Mr Charlesworth had written: 'Is it possible to execute before law changes', and wondered 'how long' it would take for the policy to charge inheritance tax on farms worth over £1million to be implemented.
Son Jonathan - who found his father hanged in a barn - said: 'The suicide note was on top of the clipboard and this was underneath it.
'That's what he was working on before he went and did it. It's fairly obvious what was on his mind.
'He was very methodical, my dad. The police have taken the suicide note and I tried to give the note about inheritance to them as well. It's got his workings out, how to save the farm from potential inheritance tax.'
Mr Charlesworth Jr said his father wrote in the suicide note that he had 'left some beers in the fridge' for his son, adding: 'I appreciate all the help and support you've given me.'
Further lines were written to his daughter, who is not involved in the farm, which has been in the family since 1957.
Although Mr Charlesworth sr was sole carer for his dementia-stricken wife Carolyn, 73, who had to be placed in a home, his son said he was 'talking more about inheritance tax lately than about caring for his wife'.
Mr Charlesworth Jr revealed he found his father after receiving a call from a family friend who had been unable to get hold of the pensioner on the phone.
He said his 'first thoughts' were shielding his youngest children - a son aged seven and daughter, nine, who live with him - from the tragedy, so called their mother to take them to her house before emergency services arrived.
Father-of-four Mr Charlesworth Jr, who keeps 40 cattle and 120 sheep, said he still hopes to be able to leave the 70-acre farm to his children one day, with his youngest son particularly interested.
'Even his teachers say all he ever talks about is farming and tractors. He's like I was at that age,' he said.
Although the farm, which also includes a small camp site and shepherds' huts, is worth approximately £2million on paper, Mr Charlesworth Jr's income last year was under £15,000, equivalent to an hourly rate less than half the minimum wage.
He added: 'I put in up to 60 hours a week, so that works out at less than £5 an hour and I only had four to five nights away with my partner.
'I haven't had a week's holiday for 13 years – yet the government is asking farmers to fund the pay rises of train drivers, nurses and doctors and everyone else.'
'The most I've ever made was £30,000 a year, when my dad was running the farm and I had another job.'
Mr Charlesworth Jr told how he has been left 'numb' and 'exhausted' by the tragedy – which he first revealed in an anonymous post on the British Farming Forum website.
In the post, he wrote: 'This morning I found my dad in the barn having taken his own life.
'So afraid of the IHT implications on farms he took his own life rather than see the government take half the farm in IHT.
'As a family, we are devastated and in shock! This is the human cost of government policy or potential government policy.
'They claim to be for the working man, no man worked harder than dad. He increased the acreage from my grandad's day and was proud of what he achieved.'
In the post, Mr Charlesworth jr also told he believed his father aimed to 'beat the budget by ending his life' and that it is what happens when 'you have built something your entire life and see it robbed from beneath your kids' feet'.
He said the family did not make enough money to pay a large inheritance tax bill, nor would they be able to borrow it.
Mr Charlesworth jr has called on farmers to protest instead by withholding their produce.
Calling on the government to rethink scrapping inheritance tax relief for farms worth over £1million – which campaigners say will lead to the break-up of family farms to pay death duties - he added: 'Rachel Reeves's husband Nicholas Joicey is Second Permanent Secretary at the Department of Food, Environment and Rural Affairs.
'She should have better knowledge of what will happen as a result of this policy.'
The Government expects the new tax rules to raise an extra half a billion pounds by 2028/9.
The Treasury says just 27 per cent of farms will be affected, but the NFU says the true figure, based on analysis of DEFRA figures, is 66 per cent.
The new rules mean farmers can pass on £1 million of agricultural assets tax-free, in addition to exemptions for all inheritances - a £325,000 tax-free allowance, plus a further £175,000 for a main residence.
The Treasury argues this means most farmers can use all three and pass on £1.5 million of assets without tax - and if the farm is owned by a married couple, both are eligible for the exemptions. This would enable them to jointly pass on £3 million of assets.
However, critics have repeatedly warned that farming families who are asset-rich on paper will now not have enough money to cover the inheritance tax.
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(One of his longest-running cases, for which he provided free legal advice, was that of the McLibel duo, environmentalist campaigners sued by McDonald's.) What that meant politically changed over time, however. In the early 00s, Starmer chose to advise the Northern Ireland Policing Board on how to make the Police Service of Northern Ireland, established after the Good Friday agreement, compliant with human rights standards. That work seemed to represent a shift in his view of the state. Rather than seeing it as an adversary that serves mainly to protect wealth and privilege, as a radical leftist might put it, according to Baldwin he was coming to believe that a human rights lawyer could work most effectively on the inside. By making the state's coercive functions compliant with human rights standards, they could be exercised more efficiently, and thus fairly. As DPP from 2008 to 2013, Starmer brought a fundamentally bureaucratic approach to the role, say his biographers. One of his proudest achievements, he has said, was overseeing his agency's transition from paper to digital record-keeping. Even Starmer's critics acknowledge that making top-down tweaks to the rules had some benefits. The criminal defence solicitor Matt Foot, for instance, told me that Starmer's guidance to prosecutors advising a light touch on assisted dying cases averted a lot of unnecessary suffering. 'I had several clients at police stations who weren't charged as a result,' he said. At other times, notably during the 2011 riots, Starmer was comfortable using the full force of the state – a fact that his leftwing biographer, Oliver Eagleton, takes him to task for. Whether Starmer was right or wrong to do so is another matter. But it's consistent with a particular interpretation of what human rights are there for. 'I don't think there's a hidden emancipatory human rights fanatic inside Keir Starmer,' Gearty told me. Starmer decided to work within the state 'because he understood the importance of the rules'. A second tension within the human rights system is that it requires the cooperation of national governments, yet asks them to sign up to agreements that restrain their power. In the UK, that tension expresses itself most strongly in the political battle over the European convention on human rights and, by extension, the Human Rights Act, which incorporates the ECHR into UK law. Together, they are intended to restrain the government and other public bodies from arbitrarily mistreating us. A vocal section of the British right has long sought to weaken or remove these protections. But in the last few years it has become a totemic issue akin to Britain's membership of the EU before Brexit: withdrawing from the ECHR would, they say, take back control from a set of rules – and the liberal elite that upholds them – that are undermining national sovereignty. In particular, the right's opprobrium is directed at article 8, the right to a private and family life, which it claims forces the British state to let unwanted migrants live in the UK. Given Starmer's background, you would expect his government to be solidly opposed to this assault on human rights – and in a way, it has been. Among the first things Starmer did as prime minister was to state publicly that his government would never withdraw from the ECHR, one of several gestures intended to signal the incoming government's commitment to international treaties and the rule of law. Human rights NGOs agree that the shift in approach has changed things, up to a point. 'There's a marked difference in the way I engage with this government compared with the last one,' says Yasmine Ahmed of Human Rights Watch, who regularly meets with ministers and officials to discuss international and domestic policy. 'They're willing to sit down and have thoughtful conversations about human rights issues.' The trouble, says Ahmed, is that this generally only extends to subjects the government sees as politically safe, such as the humanitarian crisis prompted by the war in Sudan. When her organisation raises more politically risky topics, such as migration or the Gaza war, then the government's response, especially at higher levels, is much more limited. In March, under pressure from the right, Starmer's government announced a review of how article 8 is used in immigration cases. Several human rights experts told me they believed this lent weight to a damaging myth that would, in the words of one campaigner at a human rights NGO, 'pour fuel on the fire'. Jamie Burton, a senior barrister and a former colleague of Starmer's at Doughty Street, told me that ceding ground on article 8 – which also protects British citizens, for example, from unwanted media intrusion – would be a 'lose-lose scenario'. In a recent article, Burton argued that the use of article 8 has already been so heavily restricted in immigration cases that any further tweaks would be useless and only encourage demands for the UK to drop it entirely. Dominic Grieve, a former Conservative attorney general, told me that in his view, attention would be better focused on delays in the courts system rather than article 8 itself. The delays, he said, were 'not helpful to maintaining public confidence in the ECHR'. Grieve, who as attorney general oversaw Starmer as DPP, told me he was confident in the prime minister's commitment to human rights. For many lawyers, however – regardless of their personal views on policy – it is Starmer's own rhetoric that has been most upsetting. Notably, at a session of prime minister's questions in February 2025, Starmer said that a court had made the 'wrong decision' to allow a family of six trying to flee Gaza to join their brother in the UK, based on a 'legal loophole'. Whether the decision was based on any kind of loophole is questionable: a judge found that while they had applied under the Ukraine resettlement scheme, for which they were ineligible, they nonetheless had the right to reunite with their brother under article 8. But many lawyers were appalled that Starmer, of all people, would criticise the decision of an independent court. 'For him to criticise a judge as prime minister with his background was extraordinary,' another KC who worked with Starmer in the 00s told me. (At the time, in response to the criticism – including from Lady Carr, the most senior judge in England and Wales – a spokesperson for Starmer said he had full respect for the independence of the judiciary.) Starmer's rhetoric can be explained as the government's response to the rise of Reform UK. 'They're expecting a further Tory wipeout, so the next election will be Starmer v Farage,' one person familiar with cabinet-level discussions told me. 'That's the explicit strategy. But what's not explicit is what that means for the postwar settlement and human rights, all these knock-on effects.' The source continued: 'If you're more on the left of that debate, if you're David Lammy or Angela Rayner or Lisa Nandy, you don't want to stick your hand up in cabinet and say, have we thought about where this is heading – because you'll get a combination of Morgan McSweeney, John Healey and Pat McFadden [respectively, Starmer's chief of staff and two cabinet ministers] saying, 'What the fuck are you talking about?'' Both the source and another person familiar with cabinet-level discussions said that ministers whose views differ also fear being anonymously briefed against in the media. The real problem, both added, is that you never know where Starmer himself sits. As if to illustrate the point, in May the current attorney general, Richard Hermer – appointed by Starmer last July – gave a major speech on the government's commitment to the rule of law. For the most part, it was a strongly worded critique of the 'pseudo-realists' in Westminster who argue that the old global order is dead and that Britain should withdraw from the ECHR and other treaties it finds inconvenient. It was a notable intervention, since Hermer, another former human rights barrister, has become a lightning rod for the right's critique of the Starmer government. In an echo of the attacks once deployed against Starmer when he was leader of the opposition, Hermer's critics have been dredging up his old cases to cast aspersions on his politics. (The most lurid stunt so far involves a video in which the Conservative shadow justice secretary, Robert Jenrick, parades in front of easels showing pictures of Hermer's former clients, including Shamima Begum and Gerry Adams.) Hermer has been briefed against from within Labour, too, by officials who believe his professional background and insistence that ministers follow legal advice closely are damaging the party's image. But Starmer has, for now, kept his attorney general in post. 'Starmer has put Hermer there to keep himself honest,' suggested one Labour strategist I spoke to. In that context, it was tempting to see Hermer's speech as a sign of Starmer's own worldview. Within hours, however, Hermer found himself at the centre of yet more criticism, for suggesting the 'pseudo-realists' were borrowing their ideas from the 20th-century German jurist Carl Schmitt. In scholarly circles, Schmitt's conservative ideas are widely discussed – but he's better known for being the Nazis' favourite legal theorist. A day later, Downing Street ordered Hermer to apologise. For some people I spoke to, this showed one of Starmer's wider weaknesses: he is committed to following the letter of the law, but unwilling to take the risk of arguing for the underlying principles. 'Over the last 10 to 15 years, human rights have almost become dirty words,' said Karla McLaren, political relations manager for Amnesty International's UK branch. 'We were hoping the new government would come in and try to change that. But that's not what we've seen. If you look at what cabinet ministers say, even when they're talking about human rights issues, they very rarely use human rights language.' One person familiar with cabinet-level conversations made a similar point, in reference to the ECHR. 'We've allowed the right to define the issue. It does seem baffling to me that we keep attacking a bunch of laws that are very much in our interest, and probably more in our interest than for some other countries.' A third tension in the human rights system is that it requires powerful states to enforce it, yet is undermined by an unequal global distribution of power. If states can pick and choose who is held accountable for human rights abuses, then it makes a mockery of the claim these rights are universal – and gives other states less of an incentive to participate. Nowhere has this become more apparent than in the west's response to the war in Gaza, an issue that, as one official put it to me, 'people have lots of very strong views about'. To date, in its response to the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023, Israel has killed at least 59,000 Palestinians in Gaza. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch – NGOs whose reports are regularly cited by lawyers in Starmer's former specialism – are among those who say Israel is committing genocide. (Both also say that Hamas committed war crimes on 7 October, including hostage-taking and the murder of civilians.) Yet Israel has been able to pursue its military action relatively unhindered thanks to support from its allies: the UK, certainly, but most of all the US, its principal military, financial and political backer. As the dominant global power since 1945, the US played a significant role in shaping the human rights system (Eleanor Roosevelt, the former first lady, was a driving force behind the Universal Declaration) but its commitment to that system has been patchy. 'You didn't have to be super radical to think that the international legal order was designed for the west,' Gearty told me, but in years gone by 'you could slightly pretend it wasn't'. The west's support of Israel's war, he believes, has made the imbalance impossible to ignore. Since taking office, Labour has tried to tread a fine line on Israel, between being seen to abide by international law, and continuing to support an ally it says has the right to defend itself from Hamas and hostile states such as Iran. At the same time, it has been keen not to upset the US, particularly since Trump took office. According to the two people familiar with cabinet-level discussions, there are disagreements in government about how best to approach this, analogous to the divisions over how to deal with Reform UK – a 'dog-eat-dog' worldview, as one put it, versus a more humanitarian-minded one. Both positions are generally supportive of Israel, said the other source, but differ on people's 'relative strength of support for Netanyahu'. As ever, it's not clear exactly where the prime minister sits. But as Gabriel Pogrund and Patrick Maguire report in their recent book on Labour's return to power, Starmer has exerted tight control over Labour's position on Israel since 7 October, in contrast to issues where he has been happy to delegate. His behaviour, they write, has been driven by several motivations: horror at the Hamas attacks; a desire, at least in the early days, to show that Labour had moved on from the Corbyn years by signalling strong support for Israel; and a belief that any significant departure from the US position would be futile. In opposition, this involved saying as little as possible except that Israel had a right to defend itself and that international law should be respected. In government, Labour has criticised aspects of Israel's military campaign and has affirmed the UK's support for the international criminal court's jurisdiction. (It has said that the UK would fulfil its 'legal obligations' if the Israeli prime minister, for whom the ICC has issued an arrest warrant, visits the UK – implying, but not directly confirming, that it would carry out an arrest.) On the occasions it has broken with US policy – for instance, when the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway recently placed individual sanctions on two far-right Israeli ministers – it has tried to do so only in concert with other states. This is accompanied by a studied (some might say lawyerly) refusal to say in public whether or not the Israeli government as a whole is breaking international law. Doing so would have big implications, since Britain may then be obliged to follow its own human rights laws and impose wider-reaching sanctions, potentially suspending its substantial trade, military cooperation and intelligence-sharing agreements with Israel. Officials may have to reveal what they knew when; among other things, it is a criminal offence for public servants to knowingly assist in war crimes overseas. It has led to some erratic gestures. Most prominently, in March, Downing Street forced the foreign secretary, David Lammy, to walk back comments that by blocking aid from reaching Gaza – an act now causing mass starvation – Israel had definitely broken international law. (The official line was that Israel was only 'at risk' of doing so.) In public, ministers have said, once again, that it is for the courts to determine whether Israel is committing genocide. But Starmer has also invoked his own legal credentials to deflect criticism. 'I'm well aware of the definition of genocide,' he snapped in a testy exchange at prime minister's questions last November, 'and that is why I've never described this as […] genocide'. (The international court of justice, which is considering an accusation of genocide made against Israel by South Africa, is not expected to deliver a ruling until 2027.) The most delicate footwork, however, relates to weapons sales. On taking office last year, Labour announced a review of UK arms exports to Israel. Britain is one of the world's largest arms producers, with export orders worth about £10bn a year, and in theory a system exists to stop them being used for human rights abuses. Manufacturers can only export weapons if the government gives them a licence to do so – although, according to a recent whistleblower, the system is too easy to manipulate. At the end of August 2024, according to documents recently disclosed to the high court, Starmer personally phoned Netanyahu to warn him that the UK would be suspending 30 of 350 arms export licences. Civil servants had assessed there was a risk Israel would use these weapons to violate international law, but there was an exception. Essential parts produced by British companies for F-35 planes – the world's deadliest fighter jets, designed and made mostly in the US – would continue to be shared among the UK's allies, including Israel, since they were necessary for 'global peace and security'. This summer, a long-running legal challenge to that decision came to a head in the high court. Lawyers for the Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq argued it contravened the genocide convention, the Geneva conventions, the UN arms trade treaty and the UK's own export licensing rules. In its defence, part of the evidence for which was presented in secret, the government argued that continuing to supply the parts – which contribute to a joint programme between the UK, the US and several other Nato members, as well as favoured partners such as Israel and Saudi Arabia – was necessary to maintain a deterrent against Russia. Moreover, said the government, it was impossible for the UK to determine where the parts are distributed, since the US arms company Lockheed Martin controls many of the warehouses in which they are stored. As with so many other things, it was ultimately the US calling the shots – or, as the government's lawyers put it in more opaque language, 'the US is primarily responsible for contracting with contractors'. On 30 June, the high court ruled in the government's favour, saying that decisions about security were a matter for the executive, not the courts. For some people I spoke to, this is just the unpleasant reality of politics. 'National security interests sometimes mean that you have to do things or tolerate things that you might not otherwise be very happy about,' Grieve told me. Others are less forgiving. Yasmine Ahmed of Human Rights Watch, which intervened in the case in support of Al-Haq, told me that the government's position that it can opt out of the rules risks undermining the effectiveness of key human rights treaties. Even more alarming, Ahmed said, was the government's reasoning over why it was not bound to act by the genocide convention, which says states have a duty to prevent genocide if there is a serious risk of it occurring. Government lawyers argued that a state could only be said to have breached that duty if it could be definitively proven that an act of genocide had taken place – 'a very difficult exercise, which could take many years', said the government – in other words, only after the event, when it would be too late to stop it. 'That's just a shocking position to take,' Ahmed told me. 'It's morally repugnant but also legally and factually wrong.' Even supportive observers are critical of the decision to keep supplying F-35 parts, seeing it as emblematic of a wider lack of action to defend human rights in Gaza. 'What happened on 7 October [2023] was a terrible crime, but there is no justification for what is going on today in Gaza, none whatsoever,' Philippe Sands told me. 'The fact that it wasn't stopped long ago and that the British government has not gone further makes me extremely unhappy. Even if Britain is a friend of Israel, the role of friends is to speak truth to power.' Sands's fellow human rights expert Conor Gearty sympathises with the pressures Labour are under, but is critical nonetheless. 'Starmer, Hermer, Lammy – they're all lawyers. [Lammy is also a qualified barrister and practised law before entering politics.] They're committed to law, but they can't bear the full consequences of committing to law.' A former senior diplomat who worked in Washington DC during the past decade told me that while the pressure from Trump was real, blaming the US was also an excuse British politicians often used when they wanted to avoid owning their decisions. 'It's quite convenient, saying, 'Oh don't do that, the Americans won't like it,'' said the former diplomat. This approach has also upset many civil servants representing the UK overseas. Earlier this year, more than 300 Foreign Office staff sent an open letter to Lammy raising fears they had become complicit in war crimes committed by Israel; in response, the department's chief civil servant told them to consider resigning. 'It's quite humiliating for a lot of people,' says a former civil servant who recently worked at the Foreign Office. 'People working on Russia and Ukraine are saying, how can we be demanding accountability for human rights abuses here when we're ignoring them in Gaza? We look like hypocrites.' The former civil servant said that when Labour took power, they were 'hopeful that Labour would realise the value of the rule of law and work to uphold it. This didn't last. If anything, Lammy's response to the letter was more 'corporate computer says no' than David Cameron [his Conservative predecessor as foreign secretary]. Cameron would at least read the letter and think about a response rather than 'HR' it.' We've been here before. New Labour took office in 1997 promising great things on human rights – incorporating the ECHR into law at home and promising an 'ethical foreign policy' abroad. It did the legal, procedural part, introducing the Human Rights Act and lending British support to global initiatives such as the international criminal court. But it backed away from the wider project. As the Human Rights Act came into force, it was attacked by the rightwing press. Under pressure – as the human rights expert Francesca Klug writes in her 2015 book on the subject – the Blair government abandoned a public awareness campaign extolling the benefits of the act. It also dropped plans to extend its reach to the economic sphere, which would have made issues such as a decent standard of living a matter of human rights, too, as the Universal Declaration originally envisioned. Meanwhile, Blair's enthusiastic participation in the 'war on terror' helped undermine the UN and led him to restrict civil liberties at home. Carne Ross, a senior diplomat under the Blair government who resigned in protest at the Iraq war, told me that the travails of the Starmer government remind him of this period. 'There's a sense that human rights is a luxury parties give themselves in opposition, but in government national security takes over,' said Ross. 'It's a false choice, though, because prioritising human rights is a greater contribution to long-term stability and ultimately security.' Human rights advocates have plenty of specific policy demands. But is there more the UK could do to defend the system as a whole? For Gearty, Labour's contortions reflect 'the weakness that is at the core of Britain's standing in the world, which voters can never be told about, because British voters continue to believe that this country is a world power'. The trouble, according to Gearty, is that these contortions only make the problem worse. 'Britain has little credibility for three reasons,' he said. 'One, it is seen as the child of America, with no independent engagement. Two, Britain is an imperial nation that has not yet addressed what imperialism meant; it still largely believes that it granted independence to grateful global south entities. And three, having left Europe, it has no strategic vision of anything.' Sands is slightly more optimistic. 'We live in a world of double standards. So what's new? My entire life with international law, we've lived with these kinds of situations,' he says. Sands believes the threat to the postwar human rights system is real, because the world's three greatest powers – the US, Russia and China – are now all actively hostile to the project. 'But in that context,' he says, 'the Starmer government is going against the grain. I think it's courageous.' In particular, Sands adds, countries in the global south that do not want to be bullied by their larger neighbours are still strongly invested in the human rights system – and the UK has the power to support their struggle. For the barrister Jamie Burton, the dual meaning of equality – economic as well as political – is key. 'It's a real mistake to think about human rights as just being about technical rules, the courts and litigation,' he says. 'They're a description of what society is supposed to look like.' For Burton, a renewed focus on economic equality would help take the sting out of the right's claims that human rights are for 'other' people only and disadvantage ordinary British citizens. At one point, at least, Starmer was known to be sympathetic to this argument. In opposition, according to Pogrund and Maguire, he would frequently brandish a copy of the Marmot review, a landmark decade-long study on health and inequality in Britain, as an example of where Labour's attention should lie. Now? It's less clear. When writing this piece, one story I heard kept coming back to mind. Earlier this year, a delegation of British Palestinians met with Starmer to ask for more aid to reach Gaza and for refugees to be allowed to join their relatives in the UK. As one of the Palestinians there described it to me, Starmer listened patiently and sensitively to their concerns, but did not propose anything new. Towards the end of the meeting, a teenage member of the group spoke up. 'She said, 'My ambition in life is to be a human rights lawyer like you. And I was very disappointed to hear what you just said. We were expecting more.'' The Palestinian campaigner continued: 'I thought, that's very brave of her,' he told me, adding that he was worried, at first, that she had offended their host. But he was surprised by the prime minister's reaction – or lack of it. 'He looked a bit shocked, but he didn't say anything.' Listen to our podcasts here and sign up to the long read weekly email here.
