𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Rumblings regarding whether the UK should withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) are only going to get louder over the coming months as our politicians continue to grapple with the ongoing small boats crisis. Reform UK has made it clear that if they were in government they would quit the ECHR. The Conservatives appear to be mulling over taking a similar position with Tory leader Kemi Badenoch expected to outline her party’s stance at their conference next month.

There are even elements of the Labour Party who are painfully aware that failure to get a grip on the crisis that has already seen 50,000 illegal migrants enter this country since Labour came to power, may well scupper their chances in future elections. The Labour view appears to be one of reform or review as opposed to complete withdrawal.

Party grandee Jack Straw is urging Sir Keir Starmer to ‘decouple’ the UK’s human rights laws from the ECHR so courts cannot misuse it to block deportations. Former Labour Home Secretary Lord Blunkett has called on the Prime Minister to ‘suspend’ the ECHR to allow the deportation of tens of thousands of rejected asylum seekers.

Jo White, MP for Bassetlaw and leader of the Red Wall group of around 40 Labour MPs, has also called for a review. Undoubtedly, Labour is feeling the heat over the small boat crisis with the issue achieving cut-through on the doorstep and voters demanding to know why more is not being done.

MP’s inboxes are littered with concerned constituents who are raising the issue with opinion polls now showing that it is increasingly the one thing that matters – in some cases trumping the NHS and the economy as something that most needs fixing.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is due to outline plans to rewrite laws which would restrict the ability of judges to use elements of the ECHR (namely Articles 3 and 8) to stop the removal of foreign criminals and failed asylum seekers.

You may recall it was such legislation that laughingly allowed an immigration tribunal to rule that an Albanian criminal should not be deported due to his son’s dislike of foreign chicken nuggets.

But is it realistically possible to reform the ECHR in such a way that Article 3 (Prohibition of Torture) and Article 8 (Right to respect for private and family life) are not misused by lawyers and judges when it comes to deportation? Possibly – though any tweaks would require the sign-off from 46 signatory countries which would be a vast political challenge and one that could take months, if not years.

Supporters of the ECHR famously cite that Britain played a major part in its drafting and implementation in 1951 and that Winston Churchill was a key earlier supporter. Winston and others were keen to get something in place to ensure the atrocities that took place during the Second World War were never repeated.

There is no question over whether the ECHR was needed after the first 50 years of the last century, but in this century, it has become abused by elements of the legal system. Those calling for the UK to quit it entirely face the argument that it would require a rewriting of the 1998 Belfast Good Friday Agreement – the peace agreement designed to end The Troubles in Northern Ireland.

The Good Friday Agreement contains references to the ECHR and there is concern that a rewrite using UK and common law human rights principles to replace these references would not be acceptable to all parties. However, supporters of withdrawing acknowledge that whilst the Good Friday Agreement requires the incorporation of ECHR rights into Northern Ireland law it does not necessarily mean the UK must remain a member.

Other defenders of the ECHR make the point that leaving would put Britain on par with nations such as Russia or Belarus when it comes to human rights, that Britain would lose its standing in the world and would forfeit its right to criticise other countries for their human rights abuses.

Those wanting to leave rightly point out that America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are not members – yet remain perfectly capable of ensuring that their populations enjoy the human rights expected by those living in a civilised country.

There is an increasing view that quitting the ECHR is the silver bullet needed to properly get a grip of the small boat crisis. In the absence of lawyers, judges and campaigners in the legal system and the charity sector stopping their abuses of the UK’s signatory to the Convention, it is hard to see otherwise.