With less than 17 months to go the Tories are running out of time to leave their mark. Now they are turning their attention to Human Rights. They don’t like the current arangement with the European Court because it’s just a bit too European, and they often disagree with Tory ministers.
The important thing to point out is that the only people interested in the UK withdrawing from the European Court on Human Rights (ECHR) are Tory ministers and a few of their mates. A recent public petition on the government website in support of this move got 18277 signatures. By contrast a petition requesting that Human Rights Act not be reformed received 231236 signatures.
So with a clear signal that the British people do not want any changes to the Human Rights legislation the government went ahead with consulting on withdrawing from the ECHR. They’ve thrown in the word ‘modern’ to make it sound like it’ll be better. There are now some pushing for a referendum.
How balanced will the Tory government messaging be? To be honest it may as well have been written by the Daily Mail. The government pamphlet contains Daily Mail favourites such as ‘criminals charter’, complaints about activists and how the law has been ‘misapplied’ in the past.
To maximize the likelihood of incompetence Dominic Raab is trying to rush it through. Normally there is considerable debate and consultation. The Human Rights Act itself was preceded by a detailed government consultation paper, cross-party agreement between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, and many years of discussion by academics, judges, politicians and journalists.
The Tory plan is to rush this through In a few months.
Update
You can follow the bill’s progress.