Monday, November 03, 2025
Tory-Reform pact on ECHR won't stop the boats
Now, they're at it again, claiming that the answer to all of our problems lie in us joining Putin's Russia outside the European Convention on Human Rights, as if further isolation from the rest of the World is going to make us stronger.
This has not stopped Badenoch's Tories casting one last desperate throw of the dice by joining Farage's Reform in wanting to ditch Winston Churchill's great legacy, which he designed to form a bulwark to future dictatorships. History is not a strong suit for the political right wing.
The Independent has news for these popularist wannabes. They report that nearly 300 organisations have issued a rallying cry for a “full-throated defence” of the European Convention on Human Rights, accusing politicians of using it as a scapegoat with devastating effects.
They say that groups ranging from Liberty to Refuge, health charity Parkinson's UK and the Centre for Military Justice have warned that the ECHR protects “the rights of ordinary people every day up and down the country from victims of sexual violence to LGBT+ service personnel, public interest journalists to mental health patients”:
They have accused politicians of “using our human rights as a scapegoat…. [and] escalating, irresponsible rhetoric targeting migrant and minoritised communities, which has devastating real-world consequences”.
Sam Grant, director of external affairs at Liberty, which organised the statement from 292 organisations, said: “There are people in powerful positions who want us to believe that we would be better off without the ECHR – don’t believe them.
“For decades our human rights laws have underpinned all of our daily lives by giving us the ability to speak freely, love who we want, and live in peace. These rights were hard-won and we must not allow governments now or in the future to take them away.”
The statement, which has been signed by organisations including Ben and Jerry's, Shelter, Mind, Disability Action and the Centre for Women's Justice, argues the ECHR “is fundamental to our democracy and enables ordinary people, of all backgrounds, to hold the state and public bodies accountable”.
Developed after the Second World War, with the UK playing a leading role, the ECHR and the Human Rights Act (HRA), which incorporates it into British law, “have protected the rights of ordinary people every day up and down the country; from victims of sexual violence to LGBT+ service personnel, public interest journalists to mental health patients and victims of serious injustice (from Hillsborough to Windrush)”, the groups said.
“The ECHR helped bring peace finally in Northern Ireland, through the Good Friday Agreement, and has improved the quality of public services. We reject the narrative that human rights are not in the interests of the public – everyone in our society would be much worse off without these key protections”.
Attacks on the ECHR, they say, have “often been based on myths, over-simplifications, inaccuracies, and scaremongering, particularly around migration.”
Leaving the convention would not solve problems like the backlog of asylum cases or migrants taking dangerous small boats across the Channel, they said, “but would bring about years of legal uncertainty, undermine our international position, and cause harm to the rights of both migrants in the UK and our wider communities”.
They called on politicians to stop “using our human rights as a scapegoat, level with the British public about the significant costs of ECHR withdrawal (such as the impact on the Good Friday Agreement) and end the escalating, irresponsible rhetoric targeting migrant and minoritised communities, which has devastating real-world consequences for people who are often already made vulnerable by wider social and economic marginalisation and stigmatisation.”
They also call on Sir Keir Starmer and the Labour government “to make the positive case for our human rights protections and how they empower ordinary people across the UK” adding “Now is the time for a full-throated defence of the ECHR and HRA.”
It took votes by the Liberal Democrats to block Nigel Farage's Ten Minute Rule bill to leave the ECHR, after the Labour front bench abstained, a shocking decision that defines the spinelessness of this government. It is time all parties of the centre and left stood up to this disgraceful Tory-Reform alliance to tell them that enough is enough.
This has not stopped Badenoch's Tories casting one last desperate throw of the dice by joining Farage's Reform in wanting to ditch Winston Churchill's great legacy, which he designed to form a bulwark to future dictatorships. History is not a strong suit for the political right wing.
The Independent has news for these popularist wannabes. They report that nearly 300 organisations have issued a rallying cry for a “full-throated defence” of the European Convention on Human Rights, accusing politicians of using it as a scapegoat with devastating effects.
They say that groups ranging from Liberty to Refuge, health charity Parkinson's UK and the Centre for Military Justice have warned that the ECHR protects “the rights of ordinary people every day up and down the country from victims of sexual violence to LGBT+ service personnel, public interest journalists to mental health patients”:
They have accused politicians of “using our human rights as a scapegoat…. [and] escalating, irresponsible rhetoric targeting migrant and minoritised communities, which has devastating real-world consequences”.
Sam Grant, director of external affairs at Liberty, which organised the statement from 292 organisations, said: “There are people in powerful positions who want us to believe that we would be better off without the ECHR – don’t believe them.
“For decades our human rights laws have underpinned all of our daily lives by giving us the ability to speak freely, love who we want, and live in peace. These rights were hard-won and we must not allow governments now or in the future to take them away.”
The statement, which has been signed by organisations including Ben and Jerry's, Shelter, Mind, Disability Action and the Centre for Women's Justice, argues the ECHR “is fundamental to our democracy and enables ordinary people, of all backgrounds, to hold the state and public bodies accountable”.
Developed after the Second World War, with the UK playing a leading role, the ECHR and the Human Rights Act (HRA), which incorporates it into British law, “have protected the rights of ordinary people every day up and down the country; from victims of sexual violence to LGBT+ service personnel, public interest journalists to mental health patients and victims of serious injustice (from Hillsborough to Windrush)”, the groups said.
“The ECHR helped bring peace finally in Northern Ireland, through the Good Friday Agreement, and has improved the quality of public services. We reject the narrative that human rights are not in the interests of the public – everyone in our society would be much worse off without these key protections”.
Attacks on the ECHR, they say, have “often been based on myths, over-simplifications, inaccuracies, and scaremongering, particularly around migration.”
Leaving the convention would not solve problems like the backlog of asylum cases or migrants taking dangerous small boats across the Channel, they said, “but would bring about years of legal uncertainty, undermine our international position, and cause harm to the rights of both migrants in the UK and our wider communities”.
They called on politicians to stop “using our human rights as a scapegoat, level with the British public about the significant costs of ECHR withdrawal (such as the impact on the Good Friday Agreement) and end the escalating, irresponsible rhetoric targeting migrant and minoritised communities, which has devastating real-world consequences for people who are often already made vulnerable by wider social and economic marginalisation and stigmatisation.”
They also call on Sir Keir Starmer and the Labour government “to make the positive case for our human rights protections and how they empower ordinary people across the UK” adding “Now is the time for a full-throated defence of the ECHR and HRA.”
It took votes by the Liberal Democrats to block Nigel Farage's Ten Minute Rule bill to leave the ECHR, after the Labour front bench abstained, a shocking decision that defines the spinelessness of this government. It is time all parties of the centre and left stood up to this disgraceful Tory-Reform alliance to tell them that enough is enough.
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Labour, Conservatives and Reform have establishment connections (ie millionaires, news media bosses etc). It can be in their interests to weaken both organisations to achieve their aims. One to reduce workers rights. Labour are the least involved in this cos of their closeness to labour workforce's. They are in a quandary of which way to go.
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