Former Beaconsfield MP Dominic Grieve to teach law at top university

Former Attorney General Dominic Grieve QC - one of 21 Tory MPs expelled from the party for opposing a no-deal Brexit - is to become a visiting professor in law at Goldsmiths College in London.

The ex-Attorney General for England and Wales had the Tory whip withdrawn when he joined a band of rebel Conservatives to defy Boris Johnson's bid to keep no-deal on the table during negotiations with Brussels. During crucial Brexit talks, Grieve pushed for a second referendum and made several amendments to government bills to block Britain from crashing out of the EU.

His opposition to the new Boris Johnson government came to a head last September when he and 20 other Conservatives voted with the Opposition against a Tory motion, effectively blocking a no-deal Brexit from proceeding.

After being kicked out of the party, Grieve ran as an independent in his Beaconsfield constituency, but lost out to his Tory challenger Joy Morrissey in the General Election last December.

In his speech after losing the MP role after 22 years, Mr Grieve said he would "go now to do all the other things that have been on my mind for a long time".

Today Goldsmiths, University of London, announced Grieve will teach law to coincide with the launch of their new undergraduate Law with Politics and Human Rights course.

The barrister and politician, who has an interest in human rights, said the public's civil liberties around the use of new coronavirus laws was of particular concern.

Mr Grieve said: "The different national approaches over the laws and regulations needed to tackle Covid-19 highlight the practical difficulties of balancing the needs of states for information and control with the privacy and civil liberties of individuals.

"As with previous debates around anti-terror legislation, quarantining, compulsory face coverings and the sharing of personal data through contact tracing apps raise questions to which there are no easy answers.

"It was therefore a particular pleasure to be offered at this time a Visiting Professorship at Goldsmiths with its long history of radical thinking.

"I am very much looking forward to joining its innovative new law programme and discussing this and a wide range of other issues with Goldsmiths students at a time when understanding the impact of legal and political decisions on the rights of the individual has never been more important."

Mr Grieve, who was appointed to the then Conservative government's most senior legal adviser in 2010, was one of the most vocal supporters of the European Convention on Human Rights.

After losing his position as attorney general in 2014 following a cabinet reshuffle by then leader David Cameron, Grieve said he "would have very happily stayed on".

In 2012, Grieve was at odds with Cameron and then justice secretary Chris Grayling during the controversy over giving prisoners the right to vote following a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights.

Goldsmiths said that throughout his career, Grieve worked at the "intersection between the law and politics" and has taken a particular interest in human rights.

The appointment of Grieve comes as the university launches the new LLB Law (Bachelor of Laws) with Politics and Human Rights at Goldsmiths.

A spokesman added that the new course looks at the interactions between law and politics required to effectively counter these threats at the local, national, and global level.

Professor Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos, head of the Department of Law at Goldsmiths, said: "At a time when critics, in the wider ideological sphere of Conservative thinkers and politicians, increasingly attack law - and human rights - for invading the space occupied by politics, it is invaluable to be able to rely on the expertise of the former Attorney General, whose political career exemplifies a constant pursuit of the symbiosis required between law and politics, and human rights.

"Students in our innovative LLB Law with Politics and Human Rights programme will have the unique privilege of learning from Dominic Grieve QC the values of intellectual rigour, deep knowledge and attachment to one's moral beliefs indispensable to achieving this symbiosis.

"Dominic Grieve's work has attracted admiration across the legal world and political spectrum, and not just in the UK, including for his efforts to balance civil liberties and human rights with the interest of the state, while honouring our international human rights obligations, particularly those stemming from the much-maligned European Convention on Human Rights.

"His appointment as a Visiting Professor at Goldsmiths Law could not have come at a better time, when our society is confronted with unprecedented ethical life-and-death dilemmas and we need to put the right to human dignity first."

Mr Grieve joins a team of Visiting Professors on the law programme including Martha Spurrier, executive director of Liberty, Kirsty Brimelow QC, head of Doughty Street Chambers's International Human Rights Team, the first - now former - female chair of the Bar Human Rights Committee, and Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, a distinguished barrister who has led on war crime prosecutions.