If, as Theresa May wants, the UK leaves the European convention on human rights, it will be a green light for despots and a disaster for ordinary people
here is one almighty fight coming, and it’ll be about human rights in the UK. Those who want to protect our national and international commitment to human rights need to mobilise in defence of those rights now.
An unwillingness on the part of the UK government to withdraw from the European convention on human rights has, up until now, been the major protection of the human rights settlement in the UK – we cannot sign up to a human rights regime internationally and yet deliver a lesser level of domestic protection. That would put the UK in breach of its international obligations.
Crucially, that unwillingness to withdraw has now gone. In consequence the UK settlement is seriously at risk, and the adherence of the world to human rights is in danger of being reduced by the UK signalling a massive reduction in its international commitment to human rights.
The UK was instrumental in drafting the convention, driven by Winston Churchill’s government. The European nations agreed to it, quite separately from the EU, as their commitment to human rights after the wholesale abandonment of them in two world wars. The UK has a proud record of promoting, protecting and speaking up for human rights for generations. It’s one of the UK’s unique selling points and strengths that we stand for the rules, and the rules include human rights. And now, with the world watching, we are going to turn our back on the principles we have championed. Doing so will weaken our voice dramatically on the world stage, and with other European nations, and will inevitably weaken the protection of our own citizens abroad – quite apart from weakening human rights’ protection throughout the world.
Those who think leaving the convention would be disastrous should not be lulled into a false sense of security because the government has signalled it will not pursue leaving the convention until after Brexit is sorted.
That’s about the when, not the if. Brexit has changed the political landscape and suddenly made leaving the convention doable. If the consequence of leaving the convention is the UK’s withdrawal from the Council of Europe, that will feel a very minor step by comparison with leaving the EU.
Theresa May has been absolutely clear she does want to leave the convention: “The [convention] can bind the hands of parliament, adds nothing to our prosperity, makes us less secure by preventing the deportation of dangerous foreign nationals, and does nothing to change the attitudes of governments like Russia’s when it comes to human rights.”
The prime minister is wrong on every point – the ECHR doesn’t bind parliament, the Human Rights Act explicitly preserves parliamentary sovereignty as demonstrated by the prisoner voting issue; membership of the convention adds to UK prosperity by contributing significantly to the UK’s and the world’s commitment to the rule of law – a commitment which is a critical factor in making the UK a preferred place for people to do business, and promoting world trade; preventing the deportation of foreign terrorists because of what they may face on their return has not reduced our security, failing to stop homegrown Isis supporters going abroad and then returning to the UK is the much bigger threat to our security; and Russia cared sufficiently about its international reputation to sign up to the convention; if the UK leaves the convention that would be a green light for Russia to ignore any Strasbourg ruling it chose.
But being wrong on every statement does not appear to diminish May’s enthusiasm for leaving the convention.
In an age of populism the rule of law, and a commitment to basic human rights, becomes all the more important. For a country such as the UK to explicitly abandon its commitment to its regional human rights convention would signal that individual rights must give way more and more to majoritarianism. The prime minister has already shown her indifference to the rule of law in allowing judges to twist in the wind when the high court ruled against her interpretation of the steps required to effect Brexit.
If a country is not committed to an international set of human rights, then there is no fetter on the government of that country in declaring what its view of human rights at any time is – and, in consequence, reducing individual protection. While the rulings of the European court of human rights do not bind either our courts or our parliament, they provide an independent and authoritative standard against which the conduct of a government can be measured.
If the UK leaves the convention, the government will be free to pick and choose the human rights it grants its citizens. As Russia does. No doubt it would be more generous in the rights given, but the key interest human rights are designed to protect the citizen from is the interest and activity of the executive. And if the executive is unfettered in determining what those rights are, because in the UK the executive largely controls the Commons, then there can never be effective protection.
And if the UK abandoned the convention every despot confronted with a human rights abuse would have a defence: like the UK, they would say, human rights have to be fitted to the particular circumstances of that country.
During the Tory leadership campaign May said pulling out of the convention was not something she could pursue in this parliament because of a lack of a parliamentary majority. But she didn’t abandon her long-held Home Office tutored policy preference.
It was reported last week that the PM was planning to put in the next Tory manifesto a commitment to leaving the convention.
Who knows how accurate the press reports are on the precise tactics the government intends to use, but that they want to withdraw, will if they can, is now the position of the government.
What can the supporters of human rights do? First and foremost understand and realise that things have changed because of Brexit and the arrival of a true enemy of human rights in Downing Street – the threat is real and imminent. Second, build public understanding of the imminence of the threat. Third, build across the House of Commons the widest possible support for remaining in the convention. Make it impossible for the government to leave.
The past year demonstrated that things that appear political certainties can change in an instant. Human rights have been built into the fabric for the last 20 years. Don’t let the unstitching of human rights start in 2017.
