Liz Truss continues the legacy of Conservative justice secretaries pledging to scrap the Human Rights Act that contains the European Convention of Human Rights for a British Bill of Rights. A combination of a lack of political will and just being a bad idea shows yet again that this policy is a solution in search of a problem. It also shows that the Conservatives have learnt nothing from the Brexit debacle, placing jingoistic political point scoring above the interest of its citizens and Britain’s place in the world.
After the European Union referendum, Theresa May said that ‘the reality is there will be no parliamentary majority for pulling out of the ECHR.’ This came after a report by the House of Lords sub-committee on EU justice in May, which stated, “the government give careful thought before proceeding with this policy.’ The report also questioned why they government considered the ECHR as a ‘foreign intervention’, particularly as many witnesses considered that the HRA gave effect to the ECHR in national law in a way that respected parliamentary sovereignty. At a time when the Scottish government (which is a strong supporter of the HRA) has a strained relationship with Westminster following the divisive Brexit vote, this pledge is constitutionally damaging with little signs of any real reward.
After Brexit, Britain risks becoming more isolated from its European partners. It also risks Britain having a smaller voice on the global stage. This is the exact time in which Britain should be strengthening its ties. A legally binding commitment to a set of just principles is one of the best ways of doing that. If Britain withdraws from the ECHR, it sends the wrong signal to regimes that will not put in place suitable alternative measures, that somehow one its one rule for them and one rule for us. It also sends a message to the rest of the world that Brexit was that start of Britain withdrawing form the world stage and eschewing its duties as a democratic nation. In such perilous times around the world, that is nothing more than irresponsible.
I have said it before on Progress, but it is worth repeating why the HRA is so important in its current form.
First, the HRA is perhaps one of the proudest pieces of legislation created by Labour. Despite rightwing rhetoric, the HRA is inherently British. The ECHR was drafted by an English lawyer, Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, under the watchful eye of Winston Churchill. Its aim was to bring a sense of British individual rights to mainland Europe after World War Two. The incorporation of the ECHR was very much about bringing rights home. By bemoaning the HRA in principle, or implying that the rights within the ECHR are imposed on us by some European bureaucrat, the government is damaging Britain’s own legacy on fundamental rights.
Second, the government is misleading the public on the true nature of fundamental rights. The Conservatives talk about an otherwise unhashed British Bill of Rights being more popular, or allowing British judges to makes decisions and not a European court. However, fundamental rights are above any one government, mood of public opinion or moment. They are supposed to be awkward at times. They are there to protect all people with the same set of rights, even if that may at times sit uncomfortably with the public mood. Being detached from the fractious Westminster influence is a good thing. These rights are fundamental, and so an objective European judge is as able to determine them as well as an English judge. Claiming a European judge would not properly interpret these difficult rights is jingoistic. Criticisms that the ECHR has a large backlog falls away when you consider that much of the backlog is from former Soviet bloc countries, and is countered by the fact that most United Kingdom decisions are upheld in Europe. This strengthens our own rights at home by legitimising them abroad. Labour understood this almost 16 years ago when it passed the HRA, and it also understood the importance of not playing politics with such an important piece of legislation.
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Bilal Mahmood is the former parliamentary candidate in Chingford and Woodford Green. He tweets at @bilal_labour
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