Is the UK going to invade..........

[Jimbuna]

end diplomatic relations and arrest British diplomatic staff in Equador, all that I can get

You jest....surely?

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

You jest....surely?

If we decide to play hardball, it would be naive of us to expect the other side to not do so.

However, I doubt it will come to that. After all, even if Assange does get asylum, he can't live out the rest of his life in the Ecuadorian embassy, he's got to leave it some time...and that's when he'll be arrested. Unless Ecuador can fathom out a plan to get him out of the country, I guess there's always the option of putting him in a diplomatic bag, it's been done before.

But yeah, this is just hot air, I doubt we'd be as stupid as to storm the Ecuadorian embassy, not unless this guy has the codes to our nuclear missiles or something! If we do go down the route of revoking the embassy then it'll take weeks, and be very messy. Better to just wait it out...

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

You jest....surely?

No. Slap me once, I slap you twice. Kick me twice, I kick you three times. Beat me three times and get four in return. Well, that's me.

In principle, what the UK threatens to do at the Ecuadorian embassy equals what the Iranians did at the US embassy. I know that some may not want to hear that, but that'S how it is. It cannot be that a state claims the right to nullify international rules for embassies by making a national law, and then break the rules on that ground. That is as if China would make a law that territorial waters of China no longer are the internationally accepted 6 or 11 miles or how much it was, but now 60 miles. Or as I said: Germany makes a law that allows German police to raid Danish homes and territories. Who would accept to let the Germans and Chinese get away with that?

If Britian decides to play tough and illegal because it is opportune to do so, I would confront it on the same grounds - and then plus some more.

Oberon however probably is right. This is a waiting game.

[TarJak]

The argument the Poms have in their favour is that their law can override their compliance with the Vienna convention. The issue is that the argument will always take place after the fact by which time Assange is banged up and on his way to Sweden. Ecuador can cry all they want in The Hague, but that argument will take a long time and Assange's arrest and extradition will have been long gone by the time it is finished.

And what would the likely result be? Ecuador and Britain dissolve diplomatic relations for a while and then in a few years patch things over and forget it ever happened. Britain may get stung with a damages bill, but the appeals on that would take years as well. Right or wrong the UK law gives them the ability to do what they want within their own borders, including walking into the Ecuadorian embassy with a weeks notice.

[CaptainHaplo]

While the Brits may be able to claim that the 1987 law provides them legal authority, it still violates international agreements and treaties. Its fairly certain that the Brits won't risk the backlash.

They will wait this out - sooner or later he will be outside the embassy, and when he is they will pop him then. As in arrest - not kill. Just to be clear.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

As in arrest - not kill. Just to be clear.

That is, providing, no-one else gets to him first...



Not likely though, given how much media attention is on him, but still...

[Skybird]

Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961 (link)

Article 22

1.The premises of the mission shall be inviolable. The agents of the receiving State may not enter
them, except with the consent of the head of the mission.

2.The receiving State is under a special duty to take all appropriate steps to protect the premises
of the mission against any intrusion or damage and to prevent any disturbance of the peace of the
mission or impairment of its dignity.

3.The premises of the mission, their furnishings and other property thereon and the means of

transport of the mission shall be immune from search, requisition, attachment or execution.

Britain ratified this convention, like 186 other countries also did.

Either you play by the rules, or you play not by the rules. Just to sometimes do, and when it is opportune: sometimes not - that is what renders you unpredictable to the max.

It makes maintaining diplomatic relations pointless.

For Ecuador, violating the embassy in London in principle is a justification to declare a state of war. Whether they would go that far I doubt, but that is how it is.

[XabbaRus]

Assange is a c*ck

But looking into things Assange and the Ecuadorean president have been cozy for a while.

Anyway it is all hype and bluster. What I love is how the Ecuadorean government has said that the UK has threatened to "storm" the embassy.

Nowhere in any release from HMG have I seen the word "storm". Just reference to the 1987 law. Talk about blow out of proportion.

BTW EU human rights convention doesn't allow extradition of a person to a country where they might face the death penalty. I don't know if that only applies to EU citizens but on balance it would probably apply to anyone in the EU regardless of citizenship.

Great reading the comments on the BBC page...so many numb nuts there.

[Jimbuna]

Heard a few good comments on various tv news channels during the course of the evening:

A former diplomatic ambassador from Britain has stressed he wouldn't like to see our authorities enter the building after having stripped it of its diplomatic status because that would set a precedent for any other country to do likewise to our diplomats abroad in the future.

Another 'expert' states Ecuador simply need to give Assange Ecudorian citizenship, then make him an Information Attache based in their London embassy and with that position he would automatically have diplomatic immunity.

Finally....Assange has supposedly twittered he will step out of the embassy this Sunday afternoon to make a public statement. (The band played 'Believe It If You Like').