Pressure is growing on the UK government to publicly apologise for comments denouncing “activist” and “lefty” lawyers after a man allegedly threatened to kill an immigration solicitor last month, reports the Law Society Gazette of England and Wales.
On Sunday, the Observer newspaper reported that on 7 September, a man with a large knife entered a London law firm and launched a “violent, racist attack” that injured a staff member before the assailant was overwhelmed.
The newspaper said a 28-year-old man had been charged in connection with the incident.
Insults
The Law Society of England and Wales has already warned that lawyers are at risk of physical attack if politicians continue to “sling insults” at them.
On 3 September, UK home secretary Priti Patel (pictured) blamed “activist lawyers” for frustrating attempts to deport people who came to the UK via illegal routes.
At the Conservative Party conference last Sunday, she described lawyers who help asylum seekers as “lefty lawyers”.
Prime minister Boris Johnson then publicly accused “lefty human rights lawyers and other do-gooders" of hampering the criminal justice system in his keynote conference speech.
Inflammatory
The Gazette quoted Law Society president Simon Davis as saying that the organisation was “extremely concerned” about the safety of solicitors and barristers in the current climate, especially those working on immigration issues.
“We are monitoring the situation closely and urge both government and media to be mindful of the rhetoric they employ,” Mr Davis said. “This is no exaggeration – inflammatory language, particularly from figures in authority, can have serious consequences,” he added.
The Bar Council also called for Patel and Johnson to retract their “ill-judged” comments.
“There should never be a situation when a British prime minister, home secretary and other government ministers need to be called upon to stop deliberately inflammatory language towards a profession simply doing its job in the public interest,” said Bar Council chair Amanda Pinto.
“Shockingly, we've arrived at that point.”