We have reached the point of no returns, literally and – apologies for the pun – metaphorically. The criminal bar is claiming ‘universal’ backing for direct action that begins on Monday over legal aid.
Chair Jo Sidhu’s message this week was even more bellicose than usual. ‘We are exhausted, not just by the relentless and impossible demands placed upon us for little or no reward; but by the endless gaslighting, spin and deception designed to weaken our resolve,’ declared Sidhu. The commitment of heads of chambers and circuit leaders to the ‘no returns’ policy is said to be rock-solid. Moreover, ‘the Criminal Bar is one undivided family, and it is our mutual support and loyalty that will sustain us in the weeks and months ahead’.
This does now feel like the end game, especially after the Law Society withdrew its own support for the government’s proposed £135m settlement last week. Barristers will certainly need (and deserve) the support of solicitors as they hunker down for a lengthy campaign.
Will it work? There are precedents, of course. As recently as four years ago barristers called off a planned escalation of a two-month dispute with the government over legal aid funding after the Ministry of Justice stumped up an extra £15m.
That was then, though. David Gauke was justice secretary at the time, a politician of comparatively liberal bent who is no longer even a member of the Conservative party. As Gauke himself stated in January: ‘This is a Conservative government very different from its predecessors’.
Dominic Raab is not for turning. Not yet, anyway.
Elsewhere – though still at the bar – most will welcome the demise of the nine-year-old student aptitude test. This was a good idea in principle, but not in practice. Paradoxically, thousands wasted the £150 test fee because so few of them failed.
The Bar Standards Board insists bar training course providers are much more selective these days, despite enormous demand for the BPTC amid a desert of pupillages. There would seem to be an enormous conflict of interest here, given how much money those providers pocket from aspiring barristers who will never practise. But for now we must take the BSB at its word.
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