Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[crazy canuck]

I'm arguing for the right to call for a trial by jury, not mandatory trial by jury. For most offences it will just be trial by magistrate, as it is now. But if someone is in a politically sensitive trial (such as those silly buggers with the orange powder at stonehenge or the "we support Palestine Action" crowd, I think it is only right that they can call for a trial by jury.

I agree, Jury trials are essential to the administration of justice in a common law jurisdiction.


I also agree that it is not helpful for someone to argue that civil law jurisdictions don't have jury trials so it's all OK. The criminal law and procedure is fundamentally different in those countries.

[Sheilbh]

I agree, Jury trials are essential to the administration of justice in a common law jurisdiction.

Something it seems Keir Starmer agreed with when he was a humble barrister writing for the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers house mag, Socialist Lawyer (that feels like more of a defined term than an appealing title ), back in 1992 when he called for all trials to be jury trials regardless of the expense

I think that's going too far. I don't mind raising the bar of what is just heard by a magistrate and what can be heard by a jury (as well as what must be heard by a jury). Similarly there have been numerous white collar and complex fraud trials that have collapsed here because of the sheer complexity and volume of evidence (I think one lasted for two years before it fell apart - I think those cases are unreasonable for a jury and actually better suited to a judge.

So I don't mind some reform and I'm not a jury absolutist but murder, rape, manslaughter and certain "public interest" cases is far, far too narrow.

[crazy canuck]

I agree, Jury trials are essential to the administration of justice in a common law jurisdiction.

Something it seems Keir Starmer agreed with when he was a humble barrister writing for the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers house mag, Socialist Lawyer (that feels like more of a defined term than an appealing title ), back in 1992 when he called for all trials to be jury trials regardless of the expense

I think that's going too far. I don't mind raising the bar of what is just heard by a magistrate and what can be heard by a jury (as well as what must be heard by a jury). Similarly there have been numerous white collar and complex fraud trials that have collapsed here because of the sheer complexity and volume of evidence (I think one lasted for two years before it fell apart - I think those cases are unreasonable for a jury and actually better suited to a judge.

So I don't mind some reform and I'm not a jury absolutist but murder, rape, manslaughter and certain "public interest" cases is far, far too narrow.

Agreed, the UK could have just gone with the reforms we made some time ago and refined through judicial scrutiny.

No need to reinvent the wheel.

One of my pet peeves is that governments don't fund law reform commissions anymore (or rarely-we have one that looks at our provincial labour code every five years).  It used to be that reforms like this were well researched and carefully considered by a range of subject matter experts, who then report a report to advise the law makers.  Now it's just politics.

[Sheilbh]

The Law Commission is still running here. Their proposals aren't always picked up but often is because it's normally quite unsexy, relatively technocratic changes. So their current research program covers:

Agricultural tenancies
    Commercial leasehold
    Consent in the criminal law
    Deeds
    The defence of insanity
    Desecration of a corpse
    Management of housing estates
    Ownerless land
    Product liability
    Public sector automated decision-making

Which is fairly (admirably) varied I can imagine some of those becoming fairly contentious but a lot won't.

And as I say in this case the government got a report on criminal justice by Sir Brian Leveson, former President of the Queen's Bench Division and Head of Criminal Justice. He looked at Canada, New Zealand and Australian territories (I don't fully know why but Australia is always very popular with judges as a persuasive authority in the UK). The government's plan if they stick to it is to apparently go way, way beyond his recommendations.

Although to Jos' points I think there is a very good reason Leveson limited his comparators to other common law jurisdictions.

[garbon]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2d7j350q1o

Labour ditches day-one protection from unfair dismissal in U-turn

The government has U-turned on its manifesto commitment to offer all workers the right to claim unfair dismissal from their first day in a job.

Ministers now plan to introduce the right after six months instead, after business groups voiced concerns it would discourage firms from hiring.

The government argued it was making the climbdown to stop its employment legislation being delayed in the House of Lords, where it has run into opposition.

Other new day-one rights to sick pay and paternity leave will still go ahead, coming into effect in April 2026.

A source said most unions backed the changes, though Unite said the U-turn would "damage workers' confidence".

Business groups welcomed the announcement, which followed talks between major industry bodies and unions.

The six business groups involved in the discussions said in a statement that companies would be "relieved" - but added that firms still had "concerns about many of the powers" contained in the government's employment package.

Currently, employers face additional legal hurdles if they want to sack employees who have been in their role continuously for two years or more.

They must identify a fair reason for dismissal - such as conduct or capability - and show that they acted reasonably and followed a fair process.

Labour had planned to abolish this qualifying period completely, alongside introducing a new legal probation period, likely to have been nine months.

The promise was a central pledge in Labour's manifesto ahead of last year's general election, and a key plank of its Employment Rights Bill.

Labour pledged to create "basic rights from day one to parental leave, sick pay, and protection from unfair dismissal".

But asked if it was a breach of the Labour manifesto, Business Secretary Peter Kyle said: "No."

Instead, he argued the manifesto had pledged to "bring people together" and "that this would not be legislation that pits one side against another".

Kyle told broadcasters that the compromise had been found by "unions and the employers" and it was "not my job to stand in the way of that compromise".

The government now plans to implement unfair dismissal protection after six months instead of day one, and ditch the new legal probation period.

In recent weeks, the House of Lords has twice voted in favour of a six-month period, slowing the legislation's passage through Parliament.

The Fair Work Agency - a new body tasked with overseeing the new rights - will also be set up in 2026, the government announced.

...

That seemed inevitable.

[Josquius]

Day one did seem a bit too far. Though shame they couldn't bring it down from 6 months, thats much too long. A week or two would seem rational.

[crazy canuck]

The Law Commission is still running here. Their proposals aren't always picked up but often is because it's normally quite unsexy, relatively technocratic changes. So their current research program covers:

Agricultural tenancies
    Commercial leasehold
    Consent in the criminal law
    Deeds
    The defence of insanity
    Desecration of a corpse
    Management of housing estates
    Ownerless land
    Product liability
    Public sector automated decision-making

Which is fairly (admirably) varied I can imagine some of those becoming fairly contentious but a lot won't.

And as I say in this case the government got a report on criminal justice by Sir Brian Leveson, former President of the Queen's Bench Division and Head of Criminal Justice. He looked at Canada, New Zealand and Australian territories (I don't fully know why but Australia is always very popular with judges as a persuasive authority in the UK). The government's plan if they stick to it is to apparently go way, way beyond his recommendations.

Although to Jos' points I think there is a very good reason Leveson limited his comparators to other common law jurisdictions.

Oh my, that makes the situation much worse. Your politicians actually had the mechanism to make an informed decision and didn't fully use it, or perhaps use it at all.

Yikes!

[garbon]

Day one did seem a bit too far. Though shame they couldn't bring it down from 6 months, thats much too long. A week or two would seem rational.

Would it? I, of course, can only speak from office work. While I have some sense of my employees in the first week or two of employment, I generally am spending a lot of time then training them so I don't have enough to go on usually to assess whether or not they will competently carry out their duties. That usually takes about a month.

At 6 months, I think that lines up with what many people have as a 'probation' period. Feels about right that probation and statuatory rights line up...vs. right now it has always be a fiction as a company can let you pass probation and then quickly fire you given you are still under 2 years.

[Josquius]

Day one did seem a bit too far. Though shame they couldn't bring it down from 6 months, thats much too long. A week or two would seem rational.

Would it? I, of course, can only speak from office work. While I have some sense of my employees in the first week or two of employment, I generally am spending a lot of time then training them so I don't have enough to go on usually to assess whether or not they will competently carry out their duties. That usually takes about a month.

At 6 months, I think that lines up with what many people have as a 'probation' period. Feels about right that probation and statuatory rights line up...vs. right now it has always be a fiction as a company can let you pass probation and then quickly fire you given you are still under 2 years.

I don't know. I'm thinking how it lines up for different jobs.
If someone has moved to a new country for work and then gets fired a fortnight in for no good reason.... then that's pretty shit.
At the same time if someone is hired and turns up and is clearly an absolute incompetent mess...that's also not good.

Where we are now we already have a distinction between probation rights and regular rights, I took this talk of reform as making it so people on probation do at least have some rights. They have to actually do something sacking worthy, not be good enough after the fixed time period, not just....catch the boss on a bad day.

Outside the box thought just came to me- Possible round about way to encourage hiring locals rather than bringing people in from the outside? More immediate rights for people who've had to relocate for work?

[garbon]

I don't know. I'm thinking how it lines up for different jobs.
If someone has moved to a new country for work and then gets fired a fortnight in for no good reason.... then that's pretty shit.

If the company was at all involved in getting their visa, then that's incredibly unlikely. Company not liable to spend money just to quickly toss someone out.

At the same time if someone is hired and turns up and is clearly an absolute incompetent mess...that's also not good.

Yeah and may not know that even at day one but only a little bit further in

Where we are now we already have a distinction between probation rights and regular rights, I took this talk of reform as making it so people on probation do at least have some rights. They have to actually do something sacking worthy, not be good enough after the fixed time period, not just....catch the boss on a bad day.

Actually from my understanding, passing probabtion doesn't actually confer any rights? People are still easily sackable until they have been in a role for 2 years. Before that you can easily dispense with them even if passed 'probation'. My thinking was that if now that 2 years moves down to 6 months then at least it lines up with many probation periods and actually means passing probation is a meaningful step to securing rights.

Outside the box thought just came to me- Possible round about way to encourage hiring locals rather than bringing people in from the outside? More immediate rights for people who've had to relocate for work?

Isn't there already a lot being done to discourage international labour? Not sure this would be needed.

On the positive, sensible move on stautory sick pack from day 1 as it isn't like you can tell your body don't get sick when you first start working as you have no sick leave.

[Sheilbh]

I think it's a cost of successful campaigns (including by Labour MPs in opposition) - a bit like the "no fault eviction" in the Renters' Rights Bill.

From my understanding employees are already entitled to basically all statutory rights from day one and including probation periods. Similarly laws against automatically unfair unfair dismissal, discrimination etc apply to workers during probation periods. Employment law/statutory rights broadly applies to all employees regardless of whether they're on a visa or on day one or day one thousand and one of their employment.

The biggest shift would have been an earlier entitlement to claim unfair dismissal - the trade off here is that compensation for unfair dismissal is the lower of a year's pay or about £100k. The other "day one" rights that were being introduced were paternity and parental leave (there's already a statutory entitlement to maternity leave and it's automatic unfair dismissal to fire a woman for claiming it), as well as a day one right to unpaid bereavement leave (which currently only applies for parents of children under 18). In some respects I think the main impact would be in making it more worthwhile for a worker to go to the tribunal than it is now.

I think probation doesn't change anything in relaion to statutory rights but there are typically additional contractual obligations or restrictions on an employer (and employee) that go above and beyond the statutory minimum. They only start to apply after probation. For example a three month notice period, various types of company parental or bereavement leave etc. I've limited experience on this but again my understanding is that even when you're firing someone in their probation period there will still often be a process (in particular to avoid automatic unfair dismissal or discrimination claims). Obviously that'll vary by type of employer and how sophisticated the HR teams are but it's not a free-for-all.

I think the day one statutory sick pay point is actually about that pay accruing from day one of your sick leave, not day three (as I think SSP requires at least four days of being off sick before it's required).

This was very clearly a manifesto promise which they're now breaking. But I am sympathetic because I'm really worried on employment generally. I think it's tied to the fact that they don't actually have an economic strategy or theory of growth. I think the combination of still rapidly rising minimum wage, raising employer's NI contribution, raising rates, plus a lot of the other little regulations that have been coming in (often passed by the Tories) is really, really hurting hospitality and retail - especially at the independent/small business end. Similarly I think the same combination plus the focus and broad support on AI is hurting grad/entry level recruitment.

I think you add in the changes in this legislation and it is just another layer of cost and risk - particularly in lower paid sectors like hospitality, retail, care and for entry level roles. Frankly I'm not sure you could come up with a more damaging policy mix it you were trying to hollow out the high street and allow big American tech companies to extract wealth from the UK in lieu of actual graduates/entry level workers. And I just don't think anyone seems to be thinking about how all of these things go together or interact - I do think that here it is relevant that basically no-one in the cabinet has much if any private sector/business experience. They're overwhelmingly people whose working life has been in public sector, politics, NGOs and lobbyists. I think that's also possibly why they're susceptible to fantastic branding by a campaign like "day one rights" or "no fault evictions".

Edit: And I'd just add I think the retail/hospitality stuff has big political and social consequences too. This government sees itself as presenting the "stop Farage" alternative but (I can't remember the details of this exactly) in studies the single biggest indicator an area will vote Reform/Brexit Party/UKIP is whether there's a local shop. I think it's similar in France where the biggest indicator of whether a commune will vote RN is whether it still has a boulangerie or not. So kneecapping the retail and hospitality sectors I think actually has direct political consequences of giving the sense of decay to individuals of empty shop fronts, removes spaces for social interaction/beonging and probably increases the time people spend interacting with the same big American tech companies.

There was a particularly toxic version near where my mum lives - in a town on a south coast there you ended up with basically one shop left on the high street and then the local council proposed housing asylum seekers in the empty retail units

[garbon]

There is always a process, even in companies who don't have HR, but it changes wildly depending on where employee is in process up to 2 years. Then HR gets really wild.