Is Brexit a human rights emergency? The UN seems to think so

How easy it would be to be goaded by the visit of Tendayi Achiume, the UN’s “Special Rapporteur on Racism” to Britain. “My mission…will focus on explicit incidents of racism and related intolerance as well as attention to structural forms of discrimination and exclusion that have been exacerbated by Brexit,” she says, as well as “xenophobic discrimination and intolerance aimed at refugees, migrants and even British racial, religious and ethnic minorities”. How tempting it will be for some to tell her to bug off and deal with some real human rights abuses.

But I am not going to be goaded, even if there will be many left-liberal-types who will be panicking that we have managed to turn Brexit into an apparent human rights emergency, as seen through the eyes of the UN. Achiume, who seems to be assistant professor of law at UCLA as well as holding an academic position at the University of Witwatersrand should be warmly welcomed and given access to information she wants: details of specific incidents of racism reported in the wake of the Brexit.