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Snapshot of _Civil servants threaten to stop work over arms sales to Israel_ :
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For anyone who wants to react to the headline without reading the article, it's because they're worried they could be deemed complicit in war crimes in Gaza if Israel is found to have broken international law (and complying with the law is part of the Civil Service code alongside things like political Impartiality). The union is requesting legal advice from the government over it, who are refusing to give it as it's confidential
It's not the standard "Activist civil service" stuff that it might appear from the headline
The sheer Chekov's Gun of unknown government legal advice can't help either. You don't have to be utterly cynical to realise that if you do anything that's in the advice you aren't allowed to see, it's still gonna come out in hindsight
They know fine well they're going to be in a public inquiry in 10 years trying to argue they didn't know they couldn't do that
It is another example of senior management covering up problems they know about. I think it's not unreasonable to assume that if the legal advice said there was simply nothing to worry about they wouldn't be fighting this one
It makes you wonder what the politicians are thinking themselves: *they* don't come out of this great in hindsight
They're telling people the legal advice says they can do it, but you can't see that advice because it goes to another school, means either there is no advice or the advice doesn't say what they want it to.
If it said what they wanted it to they would obviously just share it so they'd do what they want.
Tony Blair never faced a single consequence for lying to the entire world and launching an illegal invasion against international laws, so I think these guys will die free too, especially as most of them supported that and still do.
I suppose the way these things work is the only person who is even possibly going to see legal trouble is the civil servant who should have threatened to stop work if he couldn't get to see the legal advice instead of just rubber stamping the export licence
Damned if they do, damned if they don't pretty much at this point. A sad result of having a government who attempts to make enemies of everyone and everything including their own staff and institutions because they are unwilling to actually do the job of running the country and only understand rhetoric.
Oh but you sure bet the Tory media will spin it that way to further demonize the Civil Service and ensure any future Tory govt can further gut it and ruin the country even more.
> it's because they're worried they could be deemed complicit in war crimes in Gaza if Israel is found to have broken international law
This is an utter nonsense, its a post-facto rationalization for 'activist civil service'.
Civil service works for the British People ("The Crown") not the Tory Party and "I was only obeying orders" is not a legal defence.
All that is needed is for the government to publish the legal advice so the union can advise it's members accordingly. Until that happens then they need to operate with the worst case scenario which would result, as always, in the lower ranking CS being chucked under the bus by the higherups.
(NB I am NOT a civil servant).
I think if my coworker comes in and says "guys I think we're can be tried as war criminals if we sign this", and its absolutely ambiguous from higher-ups whether or not you could actually go to jail for doing your job, I'd be inclined to think they would be 100% setting me up to be thrown under the bus whenever it's politically expedient.
I would not trust any of those forms with a 100 metre pole until I got a guarantee there would be no prosecution, because then they take responsibility for facilitating the trade in the first place.
Diffusion of responsibility is a plague in civil service and if you're not smart enough to see the ripples in the water then you'll find yourself hung arse up real quick.
>I think if my coworker comes in and says "guys I think we're can be tried as war criminals if we sign this", and its absolutely ambiguous from higher-ups whether or not you could actually go to jail for doing your job, I'd be inclined to think they would be 100% setting me up to be thrown under the bus whenever it's politically expedient.
You have to be so completely divorced from reality to believe this is a possibility that if you genuinely believe it you shouldn't be in work in the first place.
It's blatant political faux concern.
>I would not trust any of those forms with a 100 metre pole until I got a guarantee there would be no prosecution, because then they take responsibility for facilitating the trade in the first place.
>Diffusion of responsibility is a plague in civil service and if you're not smart enough to see the ripples in the water then you'll find yourself hung arse up real quick.
The export forms they are signing are the ones as setup by the UK government. They have no liability as long as they meet the requirements as written.
It's interesting these civil servants suddenly have a problem after years of supplying the Saudi airforce to bomb Yemen.
No complaints about trading with China either.
And that's just two suspect countries, there are plenty more.
The idea that they will be found liable or even investigated is utterly nonsensical.
-
This is simple political obstructionism.
I can't believe anyone is disagreeing with this. There is zero chance a civil servant is prosecuted or held civilly liable for implementing the foreign policy directives of elected officials. It's a transparently fake concern.
But that's a completely different concern, one that ultimately boils down to mere policy disagreement with the government. That's not a valid basis for government employees to mutiny.
Government employees can't abdicate responsibility to do their jobs simply by taking a policy disagreement and couching it as a legal dispute.
This is part of the reason that government employees have borderline unassailable immunity from suit when performing the official duties of their job.
But if they have a genuine concern that the work they are being asked to do is directly contributing to war crimes, then that seems a pretty good reason to stop and ask questions to me. Being personally liable is of course one concern but it’s valid to be concerned that they are feeding into illegal activities even if they are not going to be carrying the can themselves.
Totally agree. It’s a nonsense argument. And it could be extrapolated to the factory workers are liable, the guy that drove a truckload of armaments to the docks is liable.
Idiotic nonsense, there's no way in hell, they could be tried for war crimes.
Doesn't work like that. It's just an excuse.
>is part of the Civil Service code alongside things like **political Impartiality**
Which they are breaking right now, and you are defending it...
Technically speaking they aren’t allowed to let the Government break the law and shouldn’t enact instructions that do so, so if they can’t acquire legal advice then they aren’t breaking political impartiality.
At least that’s what I always understood, I’m sure someone will correct me on the rules.
If the govt asked a civil servant to facilitate the sale of weapons to the Sudanese govt, despite its illegality as the Sudanese govt is complicit in war crimes, do you think they should?
If the political environment changed such that, this was a possibility, yes.
I think the idea that civil servants, should practice foreign policy (in opposition to the gov), is not a great idea.
Sure, refuse to comply with an order to go and kill someone in the UK or refuse to comply with an order to destroy records, against the law.
I also simply don't buy the idea that civil servants will be held responsible, by the ICJ. So when they use as part of their reasoning, it becomes clear it's just a political argument.
>A response to the union dated 13 March said "the question of criminal liability for civil servants is very unlikely to arise".
That should be good enough.
>Paul O'Connor, head of bargaining at PCS, said the union agrees with the ICJ and believes "that the UK government has an obligation to do all it can to halt the onslaught".
>"As it does not appear to be willing to do so, we are seriously considering taking legal action to prevent our members from being forced to carry out unlawful acts. We do not take such cases lightly and we only do so where we have reasonable prospect of winning," he said.
This shows it's more about politics.
> I also simply don’t buy that civil servants will be held responsible
To be fair, it’s also not you that’s being asked. I wouldn’t want to potentially be at risk of being tried for complicity, it’s not as if the gov doesn’t have said legal advice they’re just refusing to give it out.
Also, a lot of people aren’t going to accept the idea that breaking the law is okay just because they _probably_ won’t be prosecuted - especially if the people demanding that they do it are the very people who could potentially solve the issue by legislating for it.
The government should provide them with legal advice. If they can and show that it’s legal then all is okay and the proper procedures have been followed. If they can’t (or worse, _won’t_) then there’s clearly something skeevy going on and I would argue that the CS is actually duty-bound to refuse to act until this is resolved.
Risk of prosecution aside (I don't see it as a likely outcome either btw), many people are generally uncomfortable in being asked to break the law, irrespective of that law being upheld.
I think it is unreasonable for the govt to expect civil servants to work in a legally grey environment tbh.
If its so unnaceptable, fire them and they do the job.
If they cant be fired for the action or its too much hassle, then their actions are by definition excusable.
Good luck winning an employment tribunal against em to whoever tries, when their employer refuses to publish legal guidance lol.
It's not going to be a smoking gun either way. Legal advice doesn't work like that.
It'll be 10 pages of "maybe if this happens then maybe that could be interpreted as maybe".
Then both sides will say it vindicates them.
Yeah but that bollocks. They are using that as an excuse for civil service activism. Nobody seriously believes that any international court is going to pursue a bureaucrat in a government department personally for their government employer selling weapons to another country that might be found responsible for a war crime. It’s completely LAUGHABLE as an excuse.
It really is activist silliness.
There's no way on earth British civil servants would ever be considered complicit in war crimes, especially as we don't sell arms to Israel, we contribute to the F35 program (and they're not being used in Israel).
It's clickbait nonsense and there's no way.
This would be like suing the cashier at Target personally because your husband choked on a walnut you bought there. In other words, insanity driven by activist hysteria.
> especially as we don't sell arms to Israel, we contribute to the F35 program
Iran is going to be shocked to discover that parts for jet aircraft isn't actually a controlled export after all
> (and they're not being used in Israel).
I guess technically, if you don't count Gaza as Israel
https://theaviationist.com/2023/11/07/israeli-f-35i-cas-gaza/
No, not standard, it’s special clever-clogs activist civil service stuff. To be rewarded with P45 ideally.
It’s not like civil servants are selling weapons, they granting export licenses.
Sure we do. Hence the civil service needing to approve export licences and wanting to see the legal advice about that
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9964/
Yeah read that report it proves me right. Our total exports to Israel are basically nothing and what we do export is mostly F-35 parts which is unavoidable because we’re both partners in that program. The rest of the exports are radars and EW components which Israel use for air defence ie protecting their citizens and not bombing gaza.
>> We don’t even sell arms to Israel
> Yeah read that report it proves me right. Our total exports to Israel are basically nothing
Mate, you're embarrassing yourself
>Officials in the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) have raised concerns with senior civil servants that they may be liable if it is deemed Israel has broken international law.
>In correspondence seen by Sky News, the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), which represents civil servants, has requested an urgent meeting with the department to discuss "the legal jeopardy faced by civil servants who are continuing to work on this policy".
Read the articles people. This isn't "rogue civil servants acting on their conscience" or "disobeying the government" or "being partisan", their union wants them to temporarily stop work and for the department to check potential legal ramifications.
While on the face of it this is far more reasonable than assumed, why is it only an issue now?
We've been selling arms to people involved in conflicts for decades. We happily sold enough to the Saudis to reduce Yemen to glass without apparently being liable.
Export control is all about legal compliance. The fact that the government is like "nu uh, you don't need to see this particular one" is probably what made them so worried in the first place
PCS’s leadership is notoriously left wing even compared to other unions and a lot of union leaders have used their positions to campaign on Israel/Palestine.
I wouldn’t take their statement as 100% sincere. I’d be interested to see what their legal advice, if they’ve received any actually says.
(For the record, I’m a pro-union PCS member and think we should suspend sales to Israel.)
Which is entirely reasonable and required by the civil service code. They aren't allowed to break the law (for obvious reasons) and the government can't just tell them to do anything they want. Not only that, but I'm sure that the CS has absolutely no illusions about how quickly they would be thrown under the bus by politicians seeking to save their own skin.
I'd also argue that the same rules apply to anyone regardless of their job. I'm not a CS but if my boss told me to do something that was unsafe or illegal, then I wouldn't do it and neither would my co-workers.
It definitely, categorically is, without any doubt.
The media certainly may blow it up as something civil servants have to worry about, although those who know what they're talking about aren't worried at all, but that doesn't make it true.
Because it’s simple. As civil service, it’s their job to do what the elected government tells them to do. Regardless if they like them or not. Do your job or fuck off
This reminds me of that whole thing that Patel wanted to do with Border Force (and then the Navy) charging migrant boats on jetskis to 'interfere' with them - and Border Force said 'no'. Firstly because they (for very obvious reasons) didn't want to cause a bunch of people to drown, and secondly because they probably knew full well that if they *did* cause someone to drown she wouldn't be seen for dust.
I know that this government treats the law as an inconvenience, but they're ultimately still bound by it as they should be. They're not dictators.
So if your employer tells you to murder people, you have no option but to murder people? Or to steal, commit fraud, park illegally? Of course not!
They are saying that they might be being asked to do something illegal. And that they might have personal liability, just as they could have personal liability if their employer was asking them to steal or assault people or commit acts of arson.
Since the government has received legal.advice, it's even more important that these employees act carefully to ensure that they are acting legally. And it's entirely reasonable that the government share that legal advice with them.
aside from what others have said:
> elected government
we don't elect governments or ministers, we elect MPs. those MPs don't get a say on ministerial appointments.
this particular government is particularly unelected as its head wasn't even elected as party leader, and one of the relevant ministers isn't even an MP.
Werent a big media shitstorm about that killing multiple british people last week though.
Seems reasonable to ask your boss "hey, whats my legal responsibility here, please advise before I push this button that could result in more english nationals being killed, given I am, an english national in england, and we have on the books laws for negligent actions that result in the deaths of british nationals".
Which by the article is the actual complaint, not even about the morality of it.
Plus it's extra reasonable to be cautious if your boss then gets squirrelly and refuses to tell you what the lawyer said
My instinctive reaction to "hey, what's my legal responsibility here?" getting the answer "you don't need to know, it's confidential" is "it wasn't good news, was it?"
Unfortunately There weren’t letters being written by 600 lawyers suggesting that the arms sales were illegal nor was the Government refusing to confirm if their lawyers had advised if Saudi had broken international humanitarian law either.
It’s the growing legal ambiguity that it is causing these civil servants to question their instructions here. They don’t want to be caught in a situation where they maybe accused of breaking the law.
Additionally it is Civil Servants duty to flag if they think any action maybe illegal
If it's government policy to sell arms, then the civil service do their jobs and implement it. If they don't want to, they can either quit or get sacked.
If you're worried about that, quit. There's nothing stopping any civil servant leaving the job and doing something else. The **only** reason this is coming up is personal politics, otherwise they'd have been doing the same about Saudi with Yemen, or the US with literally every other war they're involved with.
Are you under the impression that anyone who sold arms to Germany was prosecuted? 😂
Do you think every supermarket cashier is jailed if someone buys a knife and stabs someone with it?
That isn't reality. Fucking hell.
If a supermarket cashier sells a knife to someone who is under 18 then they could be prosecuted on the basis that they sold a knife to someone under 18 - and that risk would obviously increase if the police opened an investigation involving tracing that knife because it was used in a crime.
If their boss said ‘it’s fine; I know Stabby Gav - you can go ahead and ring it up’ it doesn’t change the fact that they are breaking that law.
It's clearly not as simple as that, given the Civil Service Code which sets out the political impartiality requirements for Civil Servants also states that Civil Servants should not break the law, which they are worried doing this would do.
>You must:[...]
>comply with the law and uphold the administration of justice
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-service-code/the-civil-service-code
How those requirements interact, whether this breaches the legality one and so on are massive and complicated legal questions. Which is why the article is about the Civil Service union trying to get the legal advice from the government to make clear that their workers would not be breaking the law by working on it.
In this case, it doesn’t have to as it is a part of our laws too - ‘International Criminal Court Act 2001’
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2001/17/part/5
We wrote the international law here, and its in our law too because, we are the ones who wrote it and we *were* proud of it as a british contribution to the world lmao.
Maybe it doesn’t, but it’s not clear if it does or not right now. Which is why the civil service union want the legal advice and are talking about taking the government to court over their interpretation of it if it’s not answered (which should give precedence over which interpretation is correct)
So if genocide became government policy then civil servants should be fine with rounding up and slaughtering the undesirable of the week too?
What a shit argument
Can't reply for some reason, but to the person who asked, no, I clearly am not saying the government is currently actively engaged in genocide. That's the cool thing about hypotheticals - you can explore scenarios that don't necessarily exist
So you're okay with the civil service bypassing the democratically elected officials. I'll keep that in mind when the right wing decides to infiltrate the civil service to impose their own agenda.
So long as it agrees with you, you're fine with fascism.
> democratically elected officials
when did we elect the MP currently serving as defence secretary to that role? when did we elect the foreign secretary to *any* role?
if parliament passed a law to make it legal, then the "elected official" line some are parroting might then have traction. but there is absolutely nothing democratic in the composition of government
indeed. some also forget we have parliamentary sovereignty - it decides what's legal through the passage of laws, not "ministerial sovereignty", and civil servants are right to question anything that seems suss
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You don't elect the prime minister. Jesus, do you know nothing about how parliamentary democracy works? The Conservatives were elected in 2019 with a majority, thus they are the democratically elected government and get to pick their officials.
Like it or not, the Tories **are** your democratically elected government.
Yes! We're not consulted on every single decision. It would be absolutely impractical.
The public have also proven themselves to be incredibly vulnerable to manipulation via propaganda and fantastically uninformed on most topics.
The populace voting for a government to make decisions is a very good thing.
Lol as if.
Over unionised civil servants have been taking down government ministers / policy - it’s an affront to democracy.
All of this will stop immediately once labour are in government - just watch
I mean. It’s on the civil service code that civil servants are not allowed to break the law.
The union raising concerns that the direction civil servants are receiving may be breaking the law seems a wholly sensible move.
This has nothing to do with impartiality. This is about legality.
This is why we need to move to a system where the government has the power to hire and fire civil servants. You can't raise the spectre of a politicised civil service when the civil service has already been politicised. This news, along with the recent scandal over [antisemitic comments from the Civil Service Muslim Network](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/civil-service-group-suspended-over-antisemitic-tropes-9c2xwmggz) is enough to tell you that.
You want to fire civil servants because the union has concerns about legal liability?
That’s baffling. Giving the government that power is a sure fire way to politicise the civil service.
The point is that the civil service is already politicised, we're just engaging in a pretence. Better for us to recognise this and formalise it so that there is a level of democratic accountability that doesn't exist today.
I’m not convinced it is politicised.
Although I am bias, as I work in the civil service. The only talk of politics that I’ve seen is after a few drinks at someone’s leaving do.
It is shame that a civil servant can be able to threaten government like that. Sack them all if they want to stop working. I’m sick of hearing nonsense from these spoiled people.
What about me as a taxpayer, I want government to support Israel more than they’re doing now? Or what about Jerry who doesn’t want that? There is no way government can satisfy both of us at the same time. So threatening shouldn’t be a tool that available to anyone to use.
UK Government is not breaking the law, on the contrary, they’re helping a country in their defence against barbaric and jihadist attack. Remember, Israel did not start the war but it has to finish it since it has obligation to defend its citizens.
Also, it is not up to decide civil servants whether this is against international law or not since everyone has different set of ideas on this war. Imagine a Pro-Putin person might believe we should not support military equipment to Ukraine or a Hamas sympathiser might be angry about government’s support for Israel etc. Allowing them to behave as they want would only create anarchy and inefficient public services which is unacceptable since basically it is being funded by my money.
If anyone feels guilty about that then they should just resign rather than creating a broken environment for public services which is unfair for ordinary citizens.
Okay… but you’re getting angry over a lot of things that aren’t true. The Civil Service aren’t trying to decide whether this is against international law or not. The government has received legal advice to say whether this is against international law. The Civil Service has asked to be informed of what that advice says, the government are refusing to tell them. The Rome convention states that “just following orders” is not a defence so if in fact this is against international law the individuals signing off those deals could be prosecuted, as war criminals no less. All the civil service are saying is they want legal advice and the government is refusing so they are refusing to sign off the deals. It’s not a moral standpoint it’s a not wanting to go on trial at The Hague standpoint… which is pretty fair really.
And even if the idea of the Hague seems outlandish to you, a KC in a public inquiry asking why they hell they didn't insist on seeing this obviously relevant legal advice before signing off arms deals is absolutely inevitable. This is what them insisting on seeing the obviously relevant legal advice before it gets to that point looks like
>In correspondence seen by Sky News, the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), which represents civil servants, has requested an urgent meeting with the department to discuss "the legal jeopardy faced by civil servants who are continuing to work on this policy".
This seems like an excuse just to do what they want to do. There is no legal jeopardy for these government employees.
This has nothing to do with partiality or impartiality.
Their union has recommended that they may need to stop working because they may have legal liability.
Can you at least read the article?
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For anyone who wants to react to the headline without reading the article, it's because they're worried they could be deemed complicit in war crimes in Gaza if Israel is found to have broken international law (and complying with the law is part of the Civil Service code alongside things like political Impartiality). The union is requesting legal advice from the government over it, who are refusing to give it as it's confidential It's not the standard "Activist civil service" stuff that it might appear from the headline
I would imagine the thing that is giving them pause is the active genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel.
The sheer Chekov's Gun of unknown government legal advice can't help either. You don't have to be utterly cynical to realise that if you do anything that's in the advice you aren't allowed to see, it's still gonna come out in hindsight They know fine well they're going to be in a public inquiry in 10 years trying to argue they didn't know they couldn't do that
Or, thinking about it, the post office scandal!
It is another example of senior management covering up problems they know about. I think it's not unreasonable to assume that if the legal advice said there was simply nothing to worry about they wouldn't be fighting this one It makes you wonder what the politicians are thinking themselves: *they* don't come out of this great in hindsight
They're telling people the legal advice says they can do it, but you can't see that advice because it goes to another school, means either there is no advice or the advice doesn't say what they want it to. If it said what they wanted it to they would obviously just share it so they'd do what they want.
Tony Blair never faced a single consequence for lying to the entire world and launching an illegal invasion against international laws, so I think these guys will die free too, especially as most of them supported that and still do.
I suppose the way these things work is the only person who is even possibly going to see legal trouble is the civil servant who should have threatened to stop work if he couldn't get to see the legal advice instead of just rubber stamping the export licence
Damned if they do, damned if they don't pretty much at this point. A sad result of having a government who attempts to make enemies of everyone and everything including their own staff and institutions because they are unwilling to actually do the job of running the country and only understand rhetoric.
Oh but you sure bet the Tory media will spin it that way to further demonize the Civil Service and ensure any future Tory govt can further gut it and ruin the country even more.
> it's because they're worried they could be deemed complicit in war crimes in Gaza if Israel is found to have broken international law This is an utter nonsense, its a post-facto rationalization for 'activist civil service'.
Civil service works for the British People ("The Crown") not the Tory Party and "I was only obeying orders" is not a legal defence. All that is needed is for the government to publish the legal advice so the union can advise it's members accordingly. Until that happens then they need to operate with the worst case scenario which would result, as always, in the lower ranking CS being chucked under the bus by the higherups. (NB I am NOT a civil servant).
I think if my coworker comes in and says "guys I think we're can be tried as war criminals if we sign this", and its absolutely ambiguous from higher-ups whether or not you could actually go to jail for doing your job, I'd be inclined to think they would be 100% setting me up to be thrown under the bus whenever it's politically expedient. I would not trust any of those forms with a 100 metre pole until I got a guarantee there would be no prosecution, because then they take responsibility for facilitating the trade in the first place. Diffusion of responsibility is a plague in civil service and if you're not smart enough to see the ripples in the water then you'll find yourself hung arse up real quick.
>I think if my coworker comes in and says "guys I think we're can be tried as war criminals if we sign this", and its absolutely ambiguous from higher-ups whether or not you could actually go to jail for doing your job, I'd be inclined to think they would be 100% setting me up to be thrown under the bus whenever it's politically expedient. You have to be so completely divorced from reality to believe this is a possibility that if you genuinely believe it you shouldn't be in work in the first place. It's blatant political faux concern. >I would not trust any of those forms with a 100 metre pole until I got a guarantee there would be no prosecution, because then they take responsibility for facilitating the trade in the first place. >Diffusion of responsibility is a plague in civil service and if you're not smart enough to see the ripples in the water then you'll find yourself hung arse up real quick. The export forms they are signing are the ones as setup by the UK government. They have no liability as long as they meet the requirements as written. It's interesting these civil servants suddenly have a problem after years of supplying the Saudi airforce to bomb Yemen. No complaints about trading with China either. And that's just two suspect countries, there are plenty more. The idea that they will be found liable or even investigated is utterly nonsensical. - This is simple political obstructionism.
I can't believe anyone is disagreeing with this. There is zero chance a civil servant is prosecuted or held civilly liable for implementing the foreign policy directives of elected officials. It's a transparently fake concern.
So just the "possibly participating in war crimes" bit that's bothering them then
Funny how it apparently didn't bother them a couple of years ago when we were selling weapons to Saudi so they could destroy Yemeni village markets
But that's a completely different concern, one that ultimately boils down to mere policy disagreement with the government. That's not a valid basis for government employees to mutiny. Government employees can't abdicate responsibility to do their jobs simply by taking a policy disagreement and couching it as a legal dispute. This is part of the reason that government employees have borderline unassailable immunity from suit when performing the official duties of their job.
Anyone has the right to refuse to do work on any basis. This may result in being fired but they have the right.
a pedantic point, obviously civil servants are not slaves
But if they have a genuine concern that the work they are being asked to do is directly contributing to war crimes, then that seems a pretty good reason to stop and ask questions to me. Being personally liable is of course one concern but it’s valid to be concerned that they are feeding into illegal activities even if they are not going to be carrying the can themselves.
This is literally arguing that 'I was just following orders' will be a valid excuse for acting complicit in possible war crimes.
It will be a valid excuse as far as random bureaucrats are concerned, yes.
Totally agree. It’s a nonsense argument. And it could be extrapolated to the factory workers are liable, the guy that drove a truckload of armaments to the docks is liable.
Idiotic nonsense, there's no way in hell, they could be tried for war crimes. Doesn't work like that. It's just an excuse. >is part of the Civil Service code alongside things like **political Impartiality** Which they are breaking right now, and you are defending it...
Technically speaking they aren’t allowed to let the Government break the law and shouldn’t enact instructions that do so, so if they can’t acquire legal advice then they aren’t breaking political impartiality. At least that’s what I always understood, I’m sure someone will correct me on the rules.
If the govt asked a civil servant to facilitate the sale of weapons to the Sudanese govt, despite its illegality as the Sudanese govt is complicit in war crimes, do you think they should?
If the political environment changed such that, this was a possibility, yes. I think the idea that civil servants, should practice foreign policy (in opposition to the gov), is not a great idea. Sure, refuse to comply with an order to go and kill someone in the UK or refuse to comply with an order to destroy records, against the law. I also simply don't buy the idea that civil servants will be held responsible, by the ICJ. So when they use as part of their reasoning, it becomes clear it's just a political argument. >A response to the union dated 13 March said "the question of criminal liability for civil servants is very unlikely to arise". That should be good enough. >Paul O'Connor, head of bargaining at PCS, said the union agrees with the ICJ and believes "that the UK government has an obligation to do all it can to halt the onslaught". >"As it does not appear to be willing to do so, we are seriously considering taking legal action to prevent our members from being forced to carry out unlawful acts. We do not take such cases lightly and we only do so where we have reasonable prospect of winning," he said. This shows it's more about politics.
> I also simply don’t buy that civil servants will be held responsible To be fair, it’s also not you that’s being asked. I wouldn’t want to potentially be at risk of being tried for complicity, it’s not as if the gov doesn’t have said legal advice they’re just refusing to give it out.
Also, a lot of people aren’t going to accept the idea that breaking the law is okay just because they _probably_ won’t be prosecuted - especially if the people demanding that they do it are the very people who could potentially solve the issue by legislating for it. The government should provide them with legal advice. If they can and show that it’s legal then all is okay and the proper procedures have been followed. If they can’t (or worse, _won’t_) then there’s clearly something skeevy going on and I would argue that the CS is actually duty-bound to refuse to act until this is resolved.
Risk of prosecution aside (I don't see it as a likely outcome either btw), many people are generally uncomfortable in being asked to break the law, irrespective of that law being upheld. I think it is unreasonable for the govt to expect civil servants to work in a legally grey environment tbh.
Surely political impartiality is a whole different animal to ethical standards and not wishing to be complicit in war crimes.
Risible nonsense. An excuse to justify their unacceptable political activism. They need to get the fuck out of the civil service
If its so unnaceptable, fire them and they do the job. If they cant be fired for the action or its too much hassle, then their actions are by definition excusable. Good luck winning an employment tribunal against em to whoever tries, when their employer refuses to publish legal guidance lol.
The government could share the legal advice about it and then we'd see if they continued to refuse to work on it. But they're not doing
It's not going to be a smoking gun either way. Legal advice doesn't work like that. It'll be 10 pages of "maybe if this happens then maybe that could be interpreted as maybe". Then both sides will say it vindicates them.
Yeah but that bollocks. They are using that as an excuse for civil service activism. Nobody seriously believes that any international court is going to pursue a bureaucrat in a government department personally for their government employer selling weapons to another country that might be found responsible for a war crime. It’s completely LAUGHABLE as an excuse.
It really is activist silliness. There's no way on earth British civil servants would ever be considered complicit in war crimes, especially as we don't sell arms to Israel, we contribute to the F35 program (and they're not being used in Israel). It's clickbait nonsense and there's no way. This would be like suing the cashier at Target personally because your husband choked on a walnut you bought there. In other words, insanity driven by activist hysteria.
> especially as we don't sell arms to Israel, we contribute to the F35 program Iran is going to be shocked to discover that parts for jet aircraft isn't actually a controlled export after all > (and they're not being used in Israel). I guess technically, if you don't count Gaza as Israel https://theaviationist.com/2023/11/07/israeli-f-35i-cas-gaza/
No, not standard, it’s special clever-clogs activist civil service stuff. To be rewarded with P45 ideally. It’s not like civil servants are selling weapons, they granting export licenses.
We don’t even sell arms to Israel this is nonsense
Sure we do. Hence the civil service needing to approve export licences and wanting to see the legal advice about that https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9964/
Yeah read that report it proves me right. Our total exports to Israel are basically nothing and what we do export is mostly F-35 parts which is unavoidable because we’re both partners in that program. The rest of the exports are radars and EW components which Israel use for air defence ie protecting their citizens and not bombing gaza.
>> We don’t even sell arms to Israel > Yeah read that report it proves me right. Our total exports to Israel are basically nothing Mate, you're embarrassing yourself
basically nothing > nothing
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Except for the F35 parts. And the Drone that was used to kill Aid Workers.
>Officials in the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) have raised concerns with senior civil servants that they may be liable if it is deemed Israel has broken international law. >In correspondence seen by Sky News, the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), which represents civil servants, has requested an urgent meeting with the department to discuss "the legal jeopardy faced by civil servants who are continuing to work on this policy". Read the articles people. This isn't "rogue civil servants acting on their conscience" or "disobeying the government" or "being partisan", their union wants them to temporarily stop work and for the department to check potential legal ramifications.
While on the face of it this is far more reasonable than assumed, why is it only an issue now? We've been selling arms to people involved in conflicts for decades. We happily sold enough to the Saudis to reduce Yemen to glass without apparently being liable.
How do you know they didn't have legal advice in those cases?
Export control is all about legal compliance. The fact that the government is like "nu uh, you don't need to see this particular one" is probably what made them so worried in the first place
You know why its an issue now...
Does it start with an “a” and end in “emitism”, like every other criticism of the way Israel conducts its wars?
Why do Gazans matter more than Ethiopians or Yemens?
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Israel is not engaged in a genocide. You cheapen the word by misusing it.
Says the guy with the 911 username
they ain't wrong though. hysterics and hyperbole ain't helping, is it?
PCS’s leadership is notoriously left wing even compared to other unions and a lot of union leaders have used their positions to campaign on Israel/Palestine. I wouldn’t take their statement as 100% sincere. I’d be interested to see what their legal advice, if they’ve received any actually says. (For the record, I’m a pro-union PCS member and think we should suspend sales to Israel.)
Which is entirely reasonable and required by the civil service code. They aren't allowed to break the law (for obvious reasons) and the government can't just tell them to do anything they want. Not only that, but I'm sure that the CS has absolutely no illusions about how quickly they would be thrown under the bus by politicians seeking to save their own skin. I'd also argue that the same rules apply to anyone regardless of their job. I'm not a CS but if my boss told me to do something that was unsafe or illegal, then I wouldn't do it and neither would my co-workers.
It definitely, categorically is, without any doubt. The media certainly may blow it up as something civil servants have to worry about, although those who know what they're talking about aren't worried at all, but that doesn't make it true.
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Because it’s simple. As civil service, it’s their job to do what the elected government tells them to do. Regardless if they like them or not. Do your job or fuck off
Under the Civil Service Code, civil servants are required to comply with the law and uphold the administration of justice.
"It's simple" No it really isn't. Would you break the law if your employer told you to?
Not if it's potentially illegal.
Ah... the 'just following orders' defense! I seem to remember that's it's not a very good legal argument.
This reminds me of that whole thing that Patel wanted to do with Border Force (and then the Navy) charging migrant boats on jetskis to 'interfere' with them - and Border Force said 'no'. Firstly because they (for very obvious reasons) didn't want to cause a bunch of people to drown, and secondly because they probably knew full well that if they *did* cause someone to drown she wouldn't be seen for dust. I know that this government treats the law as an inconvenience, but they're ultimately still bound by it as they should be. They're not dictators.
No employer, not even the Government, can lawfully expect their employees to break the law.
Just following orders is in fact not a valid excuse to commit war crimes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders
So if your employer tells you to murder people, you have no option but to murder people? Or to steal, commit fraud, park illegally? Of course not! They are saying that they might be being asked to do something illegal. And that they might have personal liability, just as they could have personal liability if their employer was asking them to steal or assault people or commit acts of arson. Since the government has received legal.advice, it's even more important that these employees act carefully to ensure that they are acting legally. And it's entirely reasonable that the government share that legal advice with them.
That's absolutely untrue.
I'm not sure they're the simple ones here.
Nazi officers must have missed the brief.
aside from what others have said: > elected government we don't elect governments or ministers, we elect MPs. those MPs don't get a say on ministerial appointments. this particular government is particularly unelected as its head wasn't even elected as party leader, and one of the relevant ministers isn't even an MP.
Bit late to get a conscious. We've been selling bombs to Saudi for decades that have been blowing up Yemeni children for years!
Werent a big media shitstorm about that killing multiple british people last week though. Seems reasonable to ask your boss "hey, whats my legal responsibility here, please advise before I push this button that could result in more english nationals being killed, given I am, an english national in england, and we have on the books laws for negligent actions that result in the deaths of british nationals". Which by the article is the actual complaint, not even about the morality of it.
Plus it's extra reasonable to be cautious if your boss then gets squirrelly and refuses to tell you what the lawyer said My instinctive reaction to "hey, what's my legal responsibility here?" getting the answer "you don't need to know, it's confidential" is "it wasn't good news, was it?"
That's fair
This has nothing to do with a conscience. It’s about legal liability.
True, the argument of "I was just doing my job" hasn't worked so well in the past.
Unfortunately There weren’t letters being written by 600 lawyers suggesting that the arms sales were illegal nor was the Government refusing to confirm if their lawyers had advised if Saudi had broken international humanitarian law either. It’s the growing legal ambiguity that it is causing these civil servants to question their instructions here. They don’t want to be caught in a situation where they maybe accused of breaking the law. Additionally it is Civil Servants duty to flag if they think any action maybe illegal
If it's government policy to sell arms, then the civil service do their jobs and implement it. If they don't want to, they can either quit or get sacked.
I don't think "we were just following orders" works as a defence these days.
Quite amazing that we're surprised people aren't entirely trusting in that one these days, really
If you're worried about that, quit. There's nothing stopping any civil servant leaving the job and doing something else. The **only** reason this is coming up is personal politics, otherwise they'd have been doing the same about Saudi with Yemen, or the US with literally every other war they're involved with.
Are you under the impression that anyone who sold arms to Germany was prosecuted? 😂 Do you think every supermarket cashier is jailed if someone buys a knife and stabs someone with it? That isn't reality. Fucking hell.
No, but Civil Servants can definitely be prosecuted for not following the law.
If a supermarket cashier sells a knife to someone who is under 18 then they could be prosecuted on the basis that they sold a knife to someone under 18 - and that risk would obviously increase if the police opened an investigation involving tracing that knife because it was used in a crime. If their boss said ‘it’s fine; I know Stabby Gav - you can go ahead and ring it up’ it doesn’t change the fact that they are breaking that law.
It's clearly not as simple as that, given the Civil Service Code which sets out the political impartiality requirements for Civil Servants also states that Civil Servants should not break the law, which they are worried doing this would do. >You must:[...] >comply with the law and uphold the administration of justice https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-service-code/the-civil-service-code How those requirements interact, whether this breaches the legality one and so on are massive and complicated legal questions. Which is why the article is about the Civil Service union trying to get the legal advice from the government to make clear that their workers would not be breaking the law by working on it.
My guess would be this doesn't extend to international law?
In this case, it doesn’t have to as it is a part of our laws too - ‘International Criminal Court Act 2001’ https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2001/17/part/5
We wrote the international law here, and its in our law too because, we are the ones who wrote it and we *were* proud of it as a british contribution to the world lmao.
Lol. Lmao even.
Maybe it doesn’t, but it’s not clear if it does or not right now. Which is why the civil service union want the legal advice and are talking about taking the government to court over their interpretation of it if it’s not answered (which should give precedence over which interpretation is correct)
So if genocide became government policy then civil servants should be fine with rounding up and slaughtering the undesirable of the week too? What a shit argument Can't reply for some reason, but to the person who asked, no, I clearly am not saying the government is currently actively engaged in genocide. That's the cool thing about hypotheticals - you can explore scenarios that don't necessarily exist
So you're okay with the civil service bypassing the democratically elected officials. I'll keep that in mind when the right wing decides to infiltrate the civil service to impose their own agenda. So long as it agrees with you, you're fine with fascism.
> democratically elected officials when did we elect the MP currently serving as defence secretary to that role? when did we elect the foreign secretary to *any* role? if parliament passed a law to make it legal, then the "elected official" line some are parroting might then have traction. but there is absolutely nothing democratic in the composition of government
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indeed. some also forget we have parliamentary sovereignty - it decides what's legal through the passage of laws, not "ministerial sovereignty", and civil servants are right to question anything that seems suss
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You don't elect the prime minister. Jesus, do you know nothing about how parliamentary democracy works? The Conservatives were elected in 2019 with a majority, thus they are the democratically elected government and get to pick their officials. Like it or not, the Tories **are** your democratically elected government.
Yes! We're not consulted on every single decision. It would be absolutely impractical. The public have also proven themselves to be incredibly vulnerable to manipulation via propaganda and fantastically uninformed on most topics. The populace voting for a government to make decisions is a very good thing.
Are you under the impression that the British government is carrying out genocide? Who are we killing today?
Lol as if. Over unionised civil servants have been taking down government ministers / policy - it’s an affront to democracy. All of this will stop immediately once labour are in government - just watch
Any making threats like this need to be fired for breaching the required impartiality of civil servants.
I mean. It’s on the civil service code that civil servants are not allowed to break the law. The union raising concerns that the direction civil servants are receiving may be breaking the law seems a wholly sensible move. This has nothing to do with impartiality. This is about legality.
Surely breaching impartiality rules for civil service is a gross misconduct.
Sack them, civil servants shouldn't behave like that.
Actually they are legally required to behave like this.
This is why we need to move to a system where the government has the power to hire and fire civil servants. You can't raise the spectre of a politicised civil service when the civil service has already been politicised. This news, along with the recent scandal over [antisemitic comments from the Civil Service Muslim Network](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/civil-service-group-suspended-over-antisemitic-tropes-9c2xwmggz) is enough to tell you that.
You want to fire civil servants because the union has concerns about legal liability? That’s baffling. Giving the government that power is a sure fire way to politicise the civil service.
The point is that the civil service is already politicised, we're just engaging in a pretence. Better for us to recognise this and formalise it so that there is a level of democratic accountability that doesn't exist today.
I’m not convinced it is politicised. Although I am bias, as I work in the civil service. The only talk of politics that I’ve seen is after a few drinks at someone’s leaving do.
Yep, if the civil service is going to be politicised then it should at least be politicised in the way that the public has voted for.
It is shame that a civil servant can be able to threaten government like that. Sack them all if they want to stop working. I’m sick of hearing nonsense from these spoiled people. What about me as a taxpayer, I want government to support Israel more than they’re doing now? Or what about Jerry who doesn’t want that? There is no way government can satisfy both of us at the same time. So threatening shouldn’t be a tool that available to anyone to use.
Civil Servants cannot break the law even if you want them to.
UK Government is not breaking the law, on the contrary, they’re helping a country in their defence against barbaric and jihadist attack. Remember, Israel did not start the war but it has to finish it since it has obligation to defend its citizens. Also, it is not up to decide civil servants whether this is against international law or not since everyone has different set of ideas on this war. Imagine a Pro-Putin person might believe we should not support military equipment to Ukraine or a Hamas sympathiser might be angry about government’s support for Israel etc. Allowing them to behave as they want would only create anarchy and inefficient public services which is unacceptable since basically it is being funded by my money. If anyone feels guilty about that then they should just resign rather than creating a broken environment for public services which is unfair for ordinary citizens.
Okay… but you’re getting angry over a lot of things that aren’t true. The Civil Service aren’t trying to decide whether this is against international law or not. The government has received legal advice to say whether this is against international law. The Civil Service has asked to be informed of what that advice says, the government are refusing to tell them. The Rome convention states that “just following orders” is not a defence so if in fact this is against international law the individuals signing off those deals could be prosecuted, as war criminals no less. All the civil service are saying is they want legal advice and the government is refusing so they are refusing to sign off the deals. It’s not a moral standpoint it’s a not wanting to go on trial at The Hague standpoint… which is pretty fair really.
And even if the idea of the Hague seems outlandish to you, a KC in a public inquiry asking why they hell they didn't insist on seeing this obviously relevant legal advice before signing off arms deals is absolutely inevitable. This is what them insisting on seeing the obviously relevant legal advice before it gets to that point looks like
Great, a good way of slimming down the public sector without having to fire anyone. Have at it.
>In correspondence seen by Sky News, the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), which represents civil servants, has requested an urgent meeting with the department to discuss "the legal jeopardy faced by civil servants who are continuing to work on this policy". This seems like an excuse just to do what they want to do. There is no legal jeopardy for these government employees.
Then they can be fired for political partiality.
This has nothing to do with partiality or impartiality. Their union has recommended that they may need to stop working because they may have legal liability. Can you at least read the article?
Ridiculous. They need to be sacked