Abhijit Pandya

Abhijit Pandya (born 19 January 1980 in Harrow, England) is an English solicitor, best known for his representation in the seminal art case concerning the gifted drawings of Francis Bacon in the UK courts.^[1] He has also acted for cases concerning freedom of speech in the UK, including against the UK Home Secretary Theresa May.^[2] As a lawyer he is also known for his work in the field of investment treaty dispute resolution,^[3] including academic commentary.^[4] He has also, by invitation, written on international arbitration and investment arbitration for the widely read internet magazine 'ACQ5' that has 110,000 readers on the internet.^[5] He has frequently appeared on radio discussing international law and territorial disputes,^[6] and has appeared on television on numerous occasions discussing international law and human rights.^[7]

He is also a blogger for the Daily Mail. Formerly Deputy Chairman of Hackney Conservative Association, he has most recently represented the UK Independence Party at elections. He was a candidate for UKIP in the Harrow East constituency at the 2010 general election. Pandya increased the UKIP vote in a contest won by Bob Blackman of the Conservative Party.^[8] In 2011 Pandya stood as a candidate in the Leicester South by-election, and following controversy over his remarks about women's human rights in Islam,^[9] he increased the UKIP vote in a predominantly Labour seat (Leicester South#Elections in the 2010s). Despite these successes he has not shied from being critical of the party.^[10]

Background

Pandya's father migrated to the United Kingdom as a refugee from Uganda, after President Idi Amin expelled the Asian population of Uganda. He was born in Harrow, and educated privately at Mill Hill School and read for a law degree at the University of Leicester, before taking his LLM with Distinction in International Law at the London School of Economics.^[11]

From 2007 to 2010 Pandya worked as a Research Affiliate and Lecturer in International Law in the Department of Law at the LSE, and was called to the bar in 2006.^[12]

Pandya is chairman of the Birkenhead Society, a libertarian debating society which successfully fought to overturn the UK Government's ban on the anti-Islam Dutch politician Geert Wilders from entering Britain, an issue extensively covered in the Dutch media.^[13] He has worked as a research associate with Lord Justice Sedley, the Centre for European and Comparative Law at the University of Oxford, the Redress Trust and various diplomatic missions within the UK.^[14]

Political career

After being appointed Deputy Chairman of Hackney Conservative Association, he wrote Conservatism for the Future, a book exploring the way in which future policy should be shaped around conservative principles.^[15] He contested Harrow East at the 2010 General Election. The seat, one of the most marginal in London, had a notional Labour majority of 2647, based on results in 2005 and amended boundary changes.^[16] Pandya increased the UKIP vote in a contest won by Bob Blackman of the Conservative Party.

During the 2010 general election, Pandya made headlines for criticising multicultural policy and defending the English Defence League, after which his rival, Labour politician Tony McNulty, described him as 'a BNP man in a suit'.^[17]

In the 2010 UKIP Leadership Contest he emerged as a prominent supporter of Nigel Farage, and was rewarded by being made Head of Research for the campaign.^[18] In November 2010 Pandya started a campaign to overturn conservative commentator Michael Savage's ban from entry into Britain imposed by the former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, on the ground of freedom of speech and toleration.

In May 2011, Pandya stood as the UKIP candidate in the Leicester South by-election, 2011.^[19] During the campaign he received criticism from the Leicester Mercury when he wrote in his blog that Islam is "flawed and degenerate in its treatment of women’".^[20][21] He made references to Geert Wilders when criticising Islamic extremism by stating "Why should Britain, the country that fathered the modern world, put up with this, as Wilder's put it, retarded ideology". He then proposed "forced repatriation" of non-working foreigners on benefits who do not pay tax.”^[22] Pandya has criticised Wilders curbs on freedom of expression by saying that the Netherlands should not ban the Koran as Wilders has said, and that British youths have a drinking culture that could be reduced by looking at the example set by their Islamic counterparts.^[23] Despite only being candidate for a few weeks and with limited funds Pandya increased the UKIP vote.^[24] After resigning as Head of Research for UKIP, in April 2012 Pandya criticised UKIP and Nigel Farage in the Daily Telegraph, accusing the party of 'ranting and raving', and of 'screaming demagoguery'.^[25]

Daily Mail blogger

In 2011 Pandya joined the Daily Mail as a blogger.

Pandya has written a number of articles attacking multiculturalism which he has described as "the most disgusting statement of contempt for British history and culture". He has argued "we must now begin the necessary measures of assimilation to fight the decades of damage multiculturalism has done to our national identity, by segregating and isolating immigrants that have no idea about our culture and teaching them."^[26] He has condemned Diane Abbott's comments on white people as "extraordinary statement for someone who has built her entire political career on fomenting, exacerbating and inculcating racial differences."^[27]

In late 2011 Pandya called for the repeal of the Human Rights Act, describing it as a 'Tyrants Charter', allowing the state to curb liberties with limited control by the courts.^[28] He later explained that "to protect the working of British law and British traditions of liberty this absurd Gallic European Convention for Human Rights must be renounced." At the same time he called for the abolition of the Equality and Human Rights Commission complaining "that [it] promotes the very morally hollow, illiberal notion of rights."^[29]

Pandya has attacked Islamic extremism and called for a ban on the burka, explaining that "The mental self-justification of the Pakistani rape gangs of (white) women of the North of England are the flip side of a society whose moral cowardice simply refuses to confront the statement on gender identity that the burka makes."^[30]

In 2012 Pandya called for the rehabilitaton of Enoch Powell following what he called the 'vindication' of Ray Honeyford. Praising Powell's criticism of immigration, Pandya explained that "The lack of defence of Enoch Powell’s concerns on this front illustrates that we live in a time of deplorable moral cowardice."^[31]

Pandya is an opponent of abortion and contraception, complaining that 'the Pill, the sexual revolution and abortion all may share some blame for our dependency on immigration'. He added that the loss of British labour from women's use of the Pill was 'simply incalculable', and called for a 'moral debate on the sustainability of our culture and heritage as a result of the dependency on immigration that our sexual licentiousness, through birth-control, has caused.'^[32]

References

External links

• Durham Law School Bulletin
• LSE Department of Law Profile
• Daily Mail Blog