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 !

We are capable of creating our own HRA but it could be redrawn at any time without challenge by the government. Even with the ECHR the Tories were trying to make it harder to access those rights via a Bill of Rights. It was written in order to change or remove provisions of the HRA.

Changes included setting a higher threshold for challenges to deportation and preventing human rights claims that arise from overseas military operations amongst other things. They wanted protection from human rights claims and its aim was to make it harder to challenge violations and it was scrapped.

Hillsborough was only properly investigated because of the HRA and the ECHR. As you're aware, it was found that the police and other institutions covered up fundamental errors and blamed the victims. That's an example of how ordinary citizens can challenge the state using the ECHR.The ECtHR acts as a stopgap or safeguard to the government.

If we withdraw from the ECHR it would make us less able to challenge the human rights violations of other countries.

The ECHR has changed a lot since we helped to create it seventy five years ago.

Which of the rights in the ECHR do you think are no longer applicable?

@candlewhickgreen Aus might be useful on how to protect rights for citizens

They have a bipartisan approach to policy now and a centre left gov even

Some judges have made new Law based on the original.
It was a judge that changed the law on homeless people. It made the local authority responsible for homing illegals. They are now evenly rated with native born UK people. Many people think that locals should have priority over illegal migrants.
One of the rules is about enjoying safe family life. So if migrant lands on a beach he can argue that his wife and family have the right to join him. Then they claim for a house and health treatment with priority as above.
It is often more nuanced than I describe but that can happen.

That's highly unlikely. Illegal immigrants have usually outstayed their visa and should be deported. It's unlikely that there would be rules in place to give them precedence over locals.

I missed this yesterday. This alone tells me you are missing a lot of understanding around how government works.

Do you have any idea how many civil servants it would take to come out of the ECHR and draw up our own bill of rights? How many years it would take? How many negotiators, legal advisors, policy experts? How many areas of national and international law and policy would have to be reviewed and updated, as a result of this arbitrary change?

Come back to me with “why don’t we just write our own” when you have worked in government and seen the absolute marathon effort and expense often involved in managing even relatively minor policy changes and legislation.

This would be far from minor.

I don't know much about Australian law but I do know that they don't have an enforceable standard for human rights and are the only Western democracy without a national human rights act.

Even though Australia are signed up to international human rights Conventions they don't consistently abide by them for example their asylum seeker policies. I also understand that there are long standing human rights violations of indigenous peoples.

@candlewhickgreen , it is the basis of so many appeals where the overstayers are not sent back and criminals cannot be returned after completion of sentence.

Aus do well on humans rights tables and may well see far less social and political strain over the next decade or so

I don’t think there’s much point in ignoring the pressures of migration on stability

A quick google, there will be other reports

According to the report, the five top countries for human rights were Finland (with a grade of 98 or ‘A’), Australia (92, ‘A-’), Estonia (92, ‘A-’), Sweden (92, ‘A-’), and Austria (90, ‘A-’).

https://www.uri.edu/news/2023/12/most-of-the-worlds-countries-receive-failing-grade-in-global-human-rights-report-card/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThis%20report%20gives%20us%20an,methodology%20that's%20transparent%20and%20replicable.%E2%80%9D&text=According%20to%20the%20report%2C%20the,%2C%20'A%2D').

I think as always with these threads the assumption is that it would be Jenrick and pals re-writing HR legislation to your liking.

I don't for one second imagine you'd want Starmer and Hermer writing them.

But presumably this "living document" could be revised by each and every government if it chooses.

Which would be ok obviously because we have had far too much stability, we dont need good relationships with either the EU or the US and we have cash to burn for renegotiating the EU-UK trading agreement. Business will thank you.

Rwanda still wouldn't be legal however.

And as well as taking up so much time and energy to do this - there would be all the other [perhaps more pressing] matters which would get neglected and left undone

See also Brexit consuming the civil service for years and years

So many falsehoods in one post...

Someone who is here illegally has no right to council housing.
Someone whose asylum claim is pending is not 'an illegal', no matter by what method they came to the UK. It is not illegal to arrive by small boat, no matter how hard the previous government stamped their feet and whinged. International law is as it is.

So kindly stop.peddling misinformation.

And as well as taking up so much time and energy to do this

Migration pressures will take up time and energy. Atm I can see three options to deal with it

—Aus style border control
— rejoin EU and the new Pact
— neither of above and deal with high cost of increasing numbers, accommodation, trying to incarcerate small numbers, social and political strain as seen in EU and at times here

The only way there is no extra time and cost if is numbers don’t rise but over the next five to ten years I think that’s unlikely given projections

Yes, that is called democracy. I have plenty of confidence in the government and law system of the UK being able to create and process a human rights document and court.

And in reply to another poster, no I don't think that "It would be a lot of work" is a reason to not do something.

Whoever suggested this was Brexit all over again - you were spot on.

I was just thinking the same.

"I was just thinking the same."

And they made such a brilliant job of it last time.

And in reply to another poster, no I don't think that "It would be a lot of work" is a reason to not do something

Of course it’s not. But when any project is going to be a lot of work and will come at huge financial cost most people will be naturally resistent to undertaking it, unless really strong material benefits of doing so can be demonstrated. This is especially true when the country is in a dire economic situation, as it is now.

You have so far not suggested even you believe there would be really strong material benefits of rewriting the ECHR word for word. It’s all just vibes.

Yes I have. Democratic control over our human rights.

We do have democratic control over our human rights. First we signed the ECHR voluntarily, no one forced us to. We did so knowing that the arbiter was Strasbourg.

The government signed it after witnessing the horror of WWII and how various states systematically erased the human rights of their citizens. We were instrumental in drawing it up.

You have way more faith than I do in the caprices of government. It's evident how the wind is blowing with the rise of the far right in Europe and the far right don't like human rights.

People like Farage are dragging UK politics to the hard right. Brexit would have been unthinkable twenty years ago and rhetoric about leaving the Convention on which our human rights are founded, would have been unthinkable.

Now various potential Conservative leaders are trying to get back Reform voters by using dog whistle politics and talking about taking us out of the ECHR.

We've had decades of the right wing press and politicians, dehumanising and scapegoating immigrants.That led to the recent riots where people were encouraging others to burn asylum seekers alive. Now people are salivating about denying them basic rights.

Like I said, it's the thin edge of the wedge. I already explained how the Tories tried to bring in a bill which sought to decrease rights and that was with the protection of the ECHR.

Badenoch was talking about statutory maternity pay being 'excessive' and how businesses have too much regulation. Imagine what she'd do if basic protections were no longer safeguarded.

Well, quite. The Tories were vehemently opposed when Labour brought in the National Minimum Wage in 1998.

Well I'm just glad we'll be staying fully fledged members of the ECHR.

And I'm glad the Tories are no longer in government. I don't think we have ever had such a lazy, irresponsible, whiney bunch of unpleasant folk running the country. All they did was blame everyone else for the fact that they couldn't be arsed doing the actual work of running the country.🙄

I'm glad to see the circus they've become back of them.🥳🥳🥳

Your post is so ironic. You blame Farage for "dragging the UK to the right", when we have just voted in a Labour government. While, all through Europe, the actual far right is gaining ground, and votes.

Brexit was not "unthinkable" twenty years ago. Big changes don't come from nowhere.

Maybe in ten years' time you'll be wishing that the UK did have democratic control over its human rights.

And for all those posters bleating on about Russia or Mali, you might like to know that Turkey, that bastion of human rights, is in the ECHR.

It can work, as shown with Aus topping HR tables

The EU are making a big change on migration policy

The UK will feel more pressure than both in the next five to ten years, it’ll need something more than current policy

By "obstructive", I assume you mean "You are refusing to agree with me".

I have thought about it deeply. If someone disagrees with you, that doesn't mean that they are less informed than you are. It just means they have a different opinion. Do you see?

You obviously don't understand irony. I gave you examples of hard right rhetoric such as Brexit and leaving the ECHR, other hard right policies would be the Rwanda scheme. These were all introduced because of people like Farage. Ergo he's dragging politics to the hard right and politicians are capitulating as they're losing voters.

Of course Brexit was unthinkable 20 years ago. It was the inevitable consequence of the right wing press and politicians blaming immigration for years of bad governance and austerity.

The UK does have control over its human rights as explained, the ECHR is a voluntary agreement and the HRA means that human rights can be challenged in our courts.

Lots of countries that have poor human rights records are signed up to international treaties. By being a signatory Turkey is perhaps held in check.