David Shipley
The judiciary needs root and branch reform, and that must include sacking judges.
After thirty years of Blairite destruction, it has become necessary for Parliament to wield its power
07 October 2025 6:54pm BST
As reported last night by the Telegraph, Robert Jenrick used his speech today at the Conservative party conference in Manchester to promise that a future Tory government would dismiss “activist” judges with a known “pro-migration bias...
As reported last night by the Telegraph, Robert Jenrick used his speech today at the Conservative party conference in Manchester to promise that a future Tory government would dismiss “activist” judges with a known “pro-migration bias”. Jenrick has identified thirty five judges who have advised, or acted pro bono for, groups like Bail for Immigration Detainees, which campaigned against the Tories’ Rwanda scheme, and Asylum Support Appeals Project which regularly challenges the Home Office in court. Jenrick has reported eleven of those judges to the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office, because of apparently “activist” content they have posted online.
Jenrick is right when he says that these judges “dishonour generations of independent jurists who came before them and undermine the people’s trust in the law itself”. His plan to abolish the immigration tribunals is welcome, and he is also right to say that “judges who blur the line between adjudication and activism can have no place in our justice system”. As we have seen with the Labour government’s recent legal battles to deport a handful of migrants to France, human rights lawyers and judges have made it impossible for the state to control its borders or even decide who should live here.
But the Shadow Justice Secretary has not gone far enough. The rot in our judiciary, and our legal system is not confined to migration. We have developed a system which makes Britain impossible to govern.
To be fair to Robert Jenrick, he, more than any other Tory politician, seems to understand the world we now inhabit. For the truth is that, as Jenrick said today, the old, Blairite order is collapsing, and he is right that we must undo three decades of constitutional vandalism, restore the primacy of Parliament and the status of the Lord Chancellor. But it will not be enough to merely ensure that in the future political activists will not be permitted to become judges.
If an incoming government really wishes to save Britain, restore its constitution and make justice blind again, then there will need to be widespread removals of judges. One of the first acts of a new government must be to pass a vote in Parliament which will petition the King to remove all members of the judiciary whose political beliefs and prejudices mean they can not be trusted to deliver fair justice, and those whose politics might cause them to frustrate the democratic and popular will.
There is nothing revolutionary in this idea. Parliament’s power to remove judges was codified in the 1701 Act of Settlement. For centuries that weapon has rested unused, unneeded, because our judiciary were fair and unpolitical. Now, after thirty years of Blairite destruction, it has become necessary for Parliament to wield its power. Jenrick should be bolder. He has centuries of law, and tradition on his side. If Britain is to be restored then it must first be made governable. DT.
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As reported last night by the Telegraph, Robert Jenrick used his speech today at the Conservative party conference in Manchester to promise that a future Tory government would dismiss “activist” judges with a known “pro-migration bias”. Jenrick has identified thirty five judges who have advised, or acted pro bono for, groups like Bail for Immigration Detainees, which campaigned against the Tories’ Rwanda scheme, and Asylum Support Appeals Project which regularly challenges the Home Office in court. Jenrick has reported eleven of those judges to the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office, because of apparently “activist” content they have posted online.
Jenrick is right when he says that these judges “dishonour generations of independent jurists who came before them and undermine the people’s trust in the law itself”. His plan to abolish the immigration tribunals is welcome, and he is also right to say that “judges who blur the line between adjudication and activism can have no place in our justice system”. As we have seen with the Labour government’s recent legal battles to deport a handful of migrants to France, human rights lawyers and judges have made it impossible for the state to control its borders or even decide who should live here.
But the Shadow Justice Secretary has not gone far enough. The rot in our judiciary, and our legal system is not confined to migration. We have developed a system which makes Britain impossible to govern.
To be fair to Robert Jenrick, he, more than any other Tory politician, seems to understand the world we now inhabit. For the truth is that, as Jenrick said today, the old, Blairite order is collapsing, and he is right that we must undo three decades of constitutional vandalism, restore the primacy of Parliament and the status of the Lord Chancellor. But it will not be enough to merely ensure that in the future political activists will not be permitted to become judges.
If an incoming government really wishes to save Britain, restore its constitution and make justice blind again, then there will need to be widespread removals of judges. One of the first acts of a new government must be to pass a vote in Parliament which will petition the King to remove all members of the judiciary whose political beliefs and prejudices mean they can not be trusted to deliver fair justice, and those whose politics might cause them to frustrate the democratic and popular will.