Some of the prospective Tory leadership candidates want to us to…

[Crystalbits]

Leave the ECHR. Can anyone explain if this is a good thing. I mean there must be some logic to it. Robert Jenrick was Minister of State for Immigration, surely he knows the facts. Please explain this to me like it’s an idiots guide !

And what would be different? Huge expense to say pretty much the same thing.

i think it’s trickier than you think to stop migrants coming to the UK. The US isn’t having much luck with its wall.

Have you looked at Aus?

Any re-negotiation would require the UK to offer something attractive in exchange or else why do it?
Exactly the same goes for the UK-EU trading agreement.

It's not something you can do unilaterally. I'd be interested to know what is going to be on offer.

And so we come back to why would we trust the people that brought us Brexit to renegotiate anything?
Its not like they made a good deal of it last time.

What's funny here is, people seem to assume the EU will continue to be a lovely centrist amalgam. It's not us voting for far right parties, it's EU countries.

Yes, I would like the UK to have control over its own human rights law. If that means reviewing the GFA, fine. One of the tenets of Parliament is that no government can create laws that a future government cannot change.

The GFA is a totally different situation. There is nothing "on offer". The UK simply has to show that its UKCRH upholds the pertinent parts of the GFA.

As I said above - you can't do it unilaterally. Unless you want chaos. Maybe you do.

from David Allen Green blog -
'Perhaps the government of the United Kingdom could seek to renegotiate the Good Friday Agreement?
This would mean Ireland agreeing that those – especially nationalists – in Northern Ireland should have their existing legal rights against the United Kingdom state removed.
It would also mean Ireland agreeing that it would not be able to take the United Kingdom to court in Strasbourg.
And it would also mean – in practice – the United States and the nationalist community agreeing that legal rights and protections are removed.
This is not at all realistic."

I rather trust his legal assessment than yours.

The ECHR is not part of the EU. I think this is why so many Reform voters are against it.

It is independent of government- that’s the point.

read the article I posted. The UK can do what it wants. Right now. But like all actions, it has consequences

The UK leaves the ECHR. The UK writes its own Act of Human Rights, as every country has a right to do.

The GFA is reviewed. It is clear that the framework still stands. Or even if it doesn't -

What do you think is going to happen - bombing starts again?

"And the difficulty cannot be resolved by simply copying and pasting the Convention rights into a domestic statute for Northern Ireland.
For unless the rights are as constructed and interpreted by the Strasbourg court, and unless a disappointed party can petition the Strasbourg court directly, they are not “convention rights” – even if identically worded."
David Allen Green

Yes, I should have said "Europe" there. Ironically, much of Europe is lurching further to the right than the UK is.

Things can be rewritten. DAG has always had an agenda. But even he knows that laws and agreements can be reviewed and rewritten as circumstances change.

People going "Oh noes! Nigel Farage!" - have you looked at voting patterns in France, Germany, Italy, Austria?!

Things can be rewritten

What rights would you like to see rewrtitten?

You must have some ideas

That is not the point. The point is that no country/government can be held hostage by the past.

Leaving a treaty such as the ECHR is perfectly doable. We then write our own human rights.

That is the whole point

Come on give it a go, which rights would you rewrite, get rid of or add?

It's because they know nothing about and are not interested in NI.

Jenrick, along with most Tories is a babbling mess. Chancing, lying, fuckwits babbling nonsense, just like their Ex Leader PM Johnson. And PM Truss.

The GFA gives rights to parties to go to court in Strasbourg - unless you are offering exactly the same, you are in breach. So I assume that is what you'd offer.

The GFA offers the possibility of review.

It usually comes down to offering exactly the same, just a change of letters.

Nobody ever answers the question which rights they would like to give up.

Sigh. I have said that it is not about my opinion of the ECHR. It is about the right of a country to make their own human rights law. Which plenty do.

As for the GFA, it is written into it that it can be reviewed.

If the IRA starts bombing again, will people wring their hands about that?

And for the reasons set out above you'd need to reach agreement with the other parties to sign off changes - why would they want to give those rights up? You dont seem to have an answer to this.

So is your argument that we should rewrite the ECHR as Britain-only document, matching exactly what it currently is, word for word, but it would be British?

If so, that means putting the country through an unimaginable waste of resources and risk of instability - simply for the sake of a wholly abstract principle.

If this is not what you think and you do want to see material changes to human rights in this country, please kindly list exactly what they are.

So they don't, and what happens?

That is not my argument.

Although even if it were, where does the "waste of resources" come from? What causes the "instability"?

Basically@MyTaupeHare wants an exact copy of the current ECHR rules, but with a Union Flag printed on it and a Union Flag water mark all through the paper.

Unless of course they can suggest some concrete changes that they would like to see?