Will the right win and get rid of our rights?

I tend to see all things political through a Scottish prism. Hence I see this desire to leave the ECHR soon as a reaction to the Scottish Parliament and the YES movement in general's stated position of appealing to the ECHR under the right to self determination legislation, as soon as there is proof via the ballot box that the majority of Scottish residents have voted in favour of Independence.

I think some members of our communities confuse the EU with Europe! We are part of the continent of Europe and therefore are British/Scottish/Welsh/Irish/English AND European.

Before the HR Act is demolished, altered or ripped apart, I’d like to see what people think is being legally or illegally abused about it, or, is this yet again about Migrants. I don’t know about anyone else but I’m just a tad sick of seeing our rights eroded little by little every day with this govt slipping in Bills here, there and everywhere, bills around protesting, bills about striking, before we know it us women will see our rights eroded if we’re not very careful and end up like some US A States with their outdated abortion bills.

We are treading a very thin line between updating Acts which are no longer fit for purpose and/or modern life, and maintaining rights to think for ourselves and the right to appeal.

MaizieD

I think the Lords will delay it, Grantanow and it will run out of time before the next election.

I think the Lords are far more mindful of our international reputation, the rule of law and the way our constitution is meant to work than are the tory MPs who will vote it through in the Commons. I don't think the Lords will tolerate this Bill for a moment.

The Lords will undoubtedly amend the Bill heavily on the first round but the government will reinstate when it goes back to the Commons. It might run out of time if the GE is late but the Lords usually concede to the Commons at the second round of ping pong. If this Bill does pass into law it represents the start of a slippery slope to exclude the courts from reviewing any Ministerial decision on any issue. What next?

The EHCR is vital to our country.
We do not have a written constitution, have an appalling first past the post electoral system and are currently being governed by an unelected cabal.
At least the ECHR provides some protection against the removal of human rights in our country.
As you say Grantanow, "what next?"

Oreo

Casdon

Whitewavemark2

Oreo

I see the bill got through the first time.What interests me tho is not what this government does as they’ll be out next year but what the LP will do about stopping the boats.Haven’t heard what Starmer has to say on this apart from rubbishing the tories as you would expect. The population wants to know what they will do, but the worry is they haven’t got a clue either.

I can’t believe that there are still people who parrot what they seem to be reading in certain media outlets, when all they have to do is to go to the appropriate web site and it is all there for reading.

It’s a deflection technique.
What interested me most about tonight’s vote was that as the votes were confirmed for the Ayes, Nos and abstentions, so the whole of the ERG is now exposed, and we know exactly who they are - it makes me wonder why they have had so much power, when there are less than forty of them. On that basis, perhaps the right of the right aren’t going to win anything at all despite the noise they make.

No it bloody isn’t a deflection technique its a genuine worry!
I shall be voting Labour as always but think Starmer won’t or can’t do much more about stopping illegal migrants in small boats as a lot in the party won’t allow it.

For a Labour voter you seem to be doing everything you can to persuade other people not to …

Mawmac

The EHCR is vital to our country.
We do not have a written constitution, have an appalling first past the post electoral system and are currently being governed by an unelected cabal.
At least the ECHR provides some protection against the removal of human rights in our country.
As you say Grantanow, "what next?"

We do have a written constitution Mawmac, in all the laws we have passed over the centuries. We just don't have a codified one. It is extremely difficult to do such a thing in an 'old' country and probably better to have one that absorbs times changes and the growth of democracy.

After the war and with the Allies agreement Germany accepted The Basic (or Fundamental) Law which guarantee fundamental rights. We could look at something along those lines. It's worth noting that, even with this, Germany is a member of the ECHR too.

I think Cossy may well be right when she suggests some confuse Europe and the EU.

... the UK has been instrumental in the drafting and development of the Convention. The ECHR was drafted largely under the supervision of Sir David Maxwell Fyfe; the UK was the first country to ratify the Convention in 1951; and Lord McNair, a British legal scholar, became the first President of the ECtHR in 1959

It is not only law in countries in Europe it is also UK law.

I’m genuinely hoping they don’t get! I don’t really care who knows it, I’m not right wing and never will do, imo this entire 14 years has been like some awful Groundhog Day nightmare, they’re are many staunch Tory supporters, though few are my friends, good for them it’s a democracy! I don’t wish to see a further erosion of our rights, nor the ability to strike (as a very last resort) or to peacefully protest. Any government that’s happy to freeze the personal tax allowance for 6 years will never get my vote, it has a huge effect on those millions of workers at the lower end of the tax paying public and zero effect on the upper ranges. Not to mention the amount of tax payers money this govt has managed to spaff away. Would any opposition have done better? Who know? Whataboutery and hindsight don’t make things better and it’s surely time for a change.

Sorry, poor typing, I should learn to use preview! I just wish we had an edit facility on here!

I think a lot of people feel that people who don't treat others with human rights then use it to their advantage. This is not just directed at migrants but criminals too. I have sympathy that any government who is trying to deal with the influx of migrants by any route, should be bogged down with many court cases all paid for by the people of this country whilst the poor in this country are denied similar access to legal actions. I do think the EHCR should be looked at again. I don't think it should be done by the party in power but a cross party group alongside representatives of the legal profession.

Wierdly, despite being a lifelong lefty, I think part of what being a country MEANS is governing that particular area of land by its own people. Was taught in school - a country controls its own borders and sets its own laws.

How a government treat the dispossessed and vulnerable is how they would treat all of us if they could get away with it.

Those of us outraged by the proposed withdrawal from ECHR need not read this, but those who are happily waiving away their rights, and ours, because of what they read in the press.....please read this, then decide whether it is such a good idea.

www.echr.coe.int/documents/d/echr/convention_ENG

I think it would mean we have a British bill of rights to replace the ones we have now only difference being the British Supreme court would be sovereign not the ECHR. I think they would just transfer over all rights except for asylum seekers to use individual clause to argue why being being sent back to France or where they came from would put them personally in danger of their life. It won't affect things like rights of UK people.

sandelf

Wierdly, despite being a lifelong lefty, I think part of what being a country MEANS is governing that particular area of land by its own people. Was taught in school - a country controls its own borders and sets its own laws.

I don't think that's weird or incompatible with being a "leftie". It was behind the disintegration of the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian and, of course, British empires. It was the driving force behind the break up of the USSR and, more recently, is the motivating factor in Ukraine and Palestine. People want self-determination.

Where nationalism becomes dangerous is when people begin to think they are "exceptional" and have a right to subjugate (even destroy) others, as happened in 1930s Germany, which was the reason for the ECHR. The aim was establish a universal set of human rights and to protect people from their own inhumane governments.

By signing up to the ECHR, governments agree to abide by certain rules, which they themselves have been a party to formulating. I wonder which articles of the ECHR people dislike and think means that the UK does not have control. There is nothing in the ECHR which states that the UK does not have control of its own borders.

Germanshepherdsmum

It has been used in questionable ways of late, with human rights lawyers having been proved to invent stories to enable clients to seek the benefit of the Act. I doubt Churchill would approve. I would be glad to see the back of it, replaced with something less open to abuse.

Hear, hear!

newnanny

I think it would mean we have a British bill of rights to replace the ones we have now only difference being the British Supreme court would be sovereign not the ECHR. I think they would just transfer over all rights except for asylum seekers to use individual clause to argue why being being sent back to France or where they came from would put them personally in danger of their life. It won't affect things like rights of UK people.

Please could you give examples where the ECHR has been used to the benefit of individual asylum seekers.

Don't forget that the UK has obligations under other treaties.

The UK is a collection of small islands with comparatively few natural resources. It has become so important through trade, collaboration and a generally liberal outlook. It had an empire to exploit, which made it rich.

I wonder how people think that 21st century UK, without an empire, could survive if it turns itself into something like North Korea and refuses to participate in any sort of internationalism.

orly

Germanshepherdsmum

It has been used in questionable ways of late, with human rights lawyers having been proved to invent stories to enable clients to seek the benefit of the Act. I doubt Churchill would approve. I would be glad to see the back of it, replaced with something less open to abuse.

Hear, hear!

Examples please!

How many cases has the UK lost in the ECHR in the last year?

France is our closest neighbour and we have given substantial sums of money in an dffort to stop criminal gangs charging would be asylum seekers thousands if Euros to cross to England. Nothing has stopped this illlegal activities. With regard to the European Human Rights legislation France is a signatory. However those of us who read more than the Guardian will have read that France ignored this holy grail to deport an Asylum Seeker even after the lawyers had defended him using that the ECHR. This asylum seeker had committed crime so the French govt ignored the ECHR and deported him. The French are quite pragmatic with respect to European legislation. Those of you who support ECHR may find the blessed Keir Starmer looking to decisions on asylum being carried out overseas. I wish we would get more concerned about our own people sleepling on the streets and people stuck in unhealthy conditions rather than people spending large sums on illegal methods of entering UK illegally!

Annie1 I expect many GNers read more than the Guardian - I know I certainly do. I really do find it quite insulting when posters assume that others have a blinkered outlook.

I don't know the details of France's deportation of a criminal asylum seeker, but I ask myself why the UK can't be so pragmatic. France remains a signatory to the ECHR, so why can't the UK, if it's so easy to ignore?

I'm not sure how you propose that the UK should stop asylum seekers from entering the UK without spending money.

Anniel
Some here might doubt your claim Re France deported etc.
Here’s one article on the story.

www.euractiv.com/section/justice-home-affairs/news/french-minister-vows-to-defy-top-court-echr-on-uzbeks-expulsion/

I most certainly wasn't doubting the story. I just hadn't head about it. Thank you for the link MerylStreep.

So now I'm confused.

The French interior minister has refused to allow the man to return to France, despite the Council of State's ruling. The Council of State is France's top administrative court, so the immigration minister is defying a French ruling. He's ignoring his own country's laws.

There is some confusion about the meaning of 'sovereignty'. What it does not mean is that countries are free to legislate to over ride international law.

I'll leave it to this blogger to express it far better than I can.

At its extreme, this idea of parliamentary sovereignty leaves no constitutional place for domestic courts, let alone international ones (actually, at its most extreme, as noted in my last post and amplified by Ian Dunt’s Substack, it proposes that parliament is sovereign over reality itself).

It is important to understand that these are not arcane points of legal or political theory. They have a crucial practical importance. For one thing, the UK is hardly in a position to call on other states, be it China, Russia or Israel, to act within international law and to respect human rights if its position is that sovereignty allows every country to do whatever it wants. For another, the UK is hardly an attractive partner for other countries to strike deals with, whether about trade or, even, asylum processing, if it reserves the right to violate those deals. And, for a third, which should matter to everyone, this doctrine makes it possible that parliament might act to remove any and every right from any or all of us, with no recourse to any court. It is precisely to constrain that possibility that we need the principle that there are some laws and rights that transcend the power of nation states.

chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-brexit-battles-never-went-away-and.html

sandelf

Wierdly, despite being a lifelong lefty, I think part of what being a country MEANS is governing that particular area of land by its own people. Was taught in school - a country controls its own borders and sets its own laws.

So, when you were at school didn't you learn about how countries do, and have always, worked together. How they pool their sovereignty in various areas - by agreement that suits all parties - because the group can be greater than the individual.

When did you stop learning history?

Honestly, no one, whatever their political persuasion, wants an influx of people crossing the channel in small, unsafe boats, and risking their lives having given, in some cases, their entire family savings to criminal traffickers. It’s the traffickers who are the criminals here, not the migrants crossing. If our esteemed govt allowed and opened better legal routes and processed people’s applications more quickly and took appropriate action, we wouldn’t be in this mess!

It's time we got out of this farce of the ECHR.
Sadly it is very much abused, not just by lawyers.
The UK is quite capable of setting its' own laws on Human Rights without interference from the faceless, unelected set of individuals in anoither country.