All articles written by Lord Alton on PoliticsHome.com

30 Jan Foreign affairs

Making 2026 a year for human rights

Significant inquiries, held in 2025 by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, have led to a series of important reports – including Accountability for Daesh crimes, Transnational repression in the UK, and Forced Labour in UK Supply Chains. Lord Alton, Chair of the Committee, sets out its priorities for 2026

13 Feb 2025 Obituaries

Tribute to the Earl of Sandwich – by Lord Alton

A hereditary peer who supported Lords reform and devoted his life to the causes of international development and human rights, John Montagu was a man of expertise, kindness and wisdom

16 May 2024 Technology

It’s time to ban TikTok for the sake of our democracy and security

For all the wrong reasons, China has been in the news again. On the back of a hack and theft of Ministry of Defence data, accompanied by espionage and cyber-attacks, MI5 briefed vice-chancellors that university research programmes are at risk from malign and hostile Chinese actors.

04 Dec 2023 Foreign affairs

Lords Diary: Lord Alton

Marking the 75th anniversary of the Genocide Convention and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Lord Alton reflects on how genocide begins and how freedom and democracy can triumph

24 Apr 2023 Foreign affairs

Stalin-style show trials demand we go further to make sure Russia sanctions bite

On 17 April Vladimir Kara-Murza, a political prisoner in Russia, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for publicly opposing Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.

17 Feb 2023 Defence

We have been asleep at the wheel over the threat China poses to our security

It shouldn’t take the shooting down of spy balloons to wake us up to the increasing threats to United Kingdom security posed by Xi Jinping’s Chinese Communist Party (CCP) dictatorship in Beijing.

06 Dec 2022 Foreign affairs

Widespread protests in China could mark the beginning of the end for the CCP

Recent protests in China are ostensibly about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) authoritarian zero-Covid policies. But they also speak to a simmering discontent and pent-up anger at the general brutality of the Chinese regime and its Orwellian attitude towards protest and dissent.

04 Oct 2022 Culture

Savage cuts to the BBC World Service make a mockery of Global Britain

Throughout the autumn of 2022 the BBC will be celebrating its 100 year anniversary.

18 Mar 2022 Defence

From sanctions to blacklisting and collecting evidence of war crimes, there is much the UK can do to assist Ukraine

During his remarkable address to members of both Houses, President Volodymyr Zelensky urged us to use every possible means to help Ukrainians defend their sovereignty and to treat Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime as the terrorist state it has become.

22 Feb 2022 Foreign affairs

We must use every economic sanction at our disposal to deter Russian aggression

I have never forgotten the sheer courage and determination of pro-democracy activists whom I met on the streets of Lviv, in 1989, as they were risking their lives to throw off the shackles and chains of the Soviet Union.

06 Jan 2022 Foreign affairs

Global Britain has a responsibility to act as conflict and climate change push displacement to a record high

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ estimates that 82.4 million people are displaced worldwide, 42 per cent of whom are children - and 32 per cent of whom are refugees. We need an urgent international response to address the root causes.

13 Dec 2021 Foreign affairs

Beijing is set to cement its grip on Hong Kong’s parliament. Britain must act to protect democracy

In Hong Kong’s first general election since Beijing’s rigging of the city’s electoral system to ensure only communist party “patriots” hold power, only three of the 153 candidates - or just two percent of all hopefuls - running for Hong Kong’s parliament, the Legislative Council, are self-described democrats.

25 Nov 2021 Foreign affairs

Parliament has declared China’s treatment of the Uyghurs as genocide – when will our government?

In refusing to recognise historic genocides – such as that against the Armenians, or in the face of contemporary ones, such as the Yazidi Genocide – the Foreign Office has clung to the argument that only a court can determine what is and what is not a genocide.

26 Mar 2021 Foreign affairs

Sanctions will not silence me from speaking out against China’s abuse of the Uyghurs

In the context of gross and widespread human rights abuses, we have a duty to speak out. If the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) thinks that threats and intimidation will lead to silence, they have made a grave miscalculation.

18 Sep 2020 Foreign affairs

Children have become the latest targets of Hong Kong's National Security Law

Attacks on children and their education are shocking and underline the need for urgent international action - we must impose Magnitsky-style sanctions on key figures complicit in eroding Hongkongers’ rights.

13 Jan 2020 Foreign affairs

Hong Kong is the new frontline of freedom

The UK has a unique historic and legal obligation to champion human rights and democracy in Hong Kong. The year 2019 might have been consumed by Brexit, but in 2020, the new Government must prioritise this crisis, writes Lord Alton

01 Jul 2019 Foreign affairs

David Alton: Target government aid at Pakistan's persecuted minorities

Despite their desperation, British aid does not appear to be reaching Pakistan’s destitute minorities. DfID must account for the destination of this money and determine where it is spent, writes David Alton

10 Oct 2018 Foreign affairs

Disagreements over Nuclear Deal must not distract from larger Iranian threats

Professor Lord Alton of Liverpool writes that the UK and its European allies should give a fair hearing to any appeal that the US government makes for multilateral participation in a strategy of economic and diplomatic pressures on Tehran, despite pervasive foreign and domestic threats stemming from the heart of the Iranian regime.

28 Jun 2018 Foreign affairs

There is a critical need for urgent and effective intervention in Nigeria

Crossbench Peer, Lord Alton, writes ahead of his short debate on continuing violence between communities and armed groups in Nigeria.

18 Jun 2018 Foreign affairs

Iran’s democratic population needs a stronger voice, both at home and abroad

Crossbench peer Lord Alton, who is a member of the British Committee for Iran Freedom writes 'The EU and UK can no longer hide behind the nuclear deal and should join the US in recognising the democratic aspirations of the Iranian people and their quest for freedom and democracy'.

01 Jun 2016 Foreign affairs

Latest crackdowns only show that dissent is alive and well in Iran

Lord Alton says activists in Iran continue to be in "extreme danger", but will not be defeated by government violence.

30 Jun 2015 Foreign affairs

Weak nuclear agreement harms the cause of human rights in Iran

Crossbench Peer Lord Alton questions the US acceptance of an Iranian nuclear agreement and argues that this will 'set back the cause of human rights' in that country.