Ken Clarke’s withering dismissal of David Cameron’s policy on the Human Rights Act as “largely gesture politics” on The Westminster Hour on Sunday has gone largely without comment so far. So here’s a comment: crikey.
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But isn’t the Human Rights Act basically the same text as the European Convention on Human Rights? In the same way the Lisbon Treaty and EU constitution are basically the same text. Yet Dave doesn’t like the HRA, but is ok with the ECHR.
The ECHR was drafted by English lawyers in the late 1940s in order to police the behaviour of European governments, who were not at the time noted for their respect for human rights. It was not envisaged that the ECHR would ever be enforceable in the United Kingdom – the common law was assumed to be a sufficient guarantor of basic standards of good government.
Tories don’t like anything perceived to emanate from Europe, and they don’t like people they consider undeserving having enforceable rights. But that doesn’t stop Tories using the language of rights (and indeed the HRA) when it is rich people whose rights are threatened (such as people who hunt with hounds, and landowners who collect ground rents without providing a service).
For Cameron, opposition to the HRA is all about appeasing social authoritarians in his own Party, and throwing a bit of “red meat” to the Eurosceptics.
Cameron, himself, has said he is in favour of enforceable human rights, as long as they don’t come from Europe.
The ECHR has done a good job. It stopped the flogging of school children, it enabled gays to serve in the military, it removed the ability of politicians to interfere in sentencing. Conversely, it blew resounding rasberries at the Countryside Alliance and the Duke of Westminster – a jolly good thing by any standard.