No, Sajid Javid, you don’t get to make us all complicit in the state-sponsored murder of Isis fighters

We cannot ignore what the Americans are likely to do, wash our hands of responsibility and pretend it’s not our problem

Britain left the death penalty behind in 1965. We are joined by 106 countries worldwide who recognise that state execution is cruel, inhuman and degrading – of the executed and the executioner. It feels strange to even contemplate enumerating the reasons why the death penalty is wrong in a UK newspaper; the abolitionists won the argument long ago and the majority of the British public agree. Like torture, this is an issue no civilised nation should compromise on.

But yesterday, home secretary Sajid Javid took a step back to the dark ages, abandoning the UK’s longstanding policy of denying extradition requests or intelligence sharing where they could be used to facilitate an execution.

The announcement came in a leaked letter to US attorney general, Jeff Sessions, declaring that the UK did not require diplomatic assurances that two alleged Isis fighters would not be executed, before sharing intelligence with the US to help secure their prosecution.

The stakes could not be higher. If sent to the US without adequate assurances, the two suspects face being sent to Guantanamo Bay, and if successfully prosecuted they may be put to death.

There is no arguing that justice will be served by the execution of these two men. The mother of one of their alleged victims herself makes this point, wisely noting on Radio 4’s Today programme that their death would only “make them martyrs in their twisted ideology” and that she would rather see them held accountable by a prison sentence.

The crimes these two men stand accused of are truly terrible. But in walking away from the death penalty, the UK took a principled stand against this brutal, ineffective and irreversible violation of the fundamental right to life. We do not accept exceptions for murder, rape, or any other crime prosecuted here at home. We must not endorse exceptions for crimes prosecuted abroad.

Our nation has long been a strong advocate for the abolition of the death penalty on the international stage. The home secretary’s U-turn on a policy honoured unequivocally by successive governments for over a decade undermines the UK’s leadership in encouraging others to join us in abolishing this cruel and inhuman practice. It makes a mockery of our purported commitment to human rights standards and undermines our diplomatic standing on the world stage. If you will not weep for these two men, think instead of the hundreds of people executed in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan – the world’s leaders in carrying out death sentences.

The home secretary’s decision – made in secret, and without any public or parliamentary consultation – makes us all complicit in entrenching the legitimacy of the death penalty. We cannot ignore what the Americans are likely to do, wash our hands of responsibility and pretend it’s not our problem.

That kind of thinking has landed us in trouble before. Last month, parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee issued a pair of scathing reports documenting how the UK turned a blind eye to torture and abuse carried out by American officials. Since then, government officials from the prime minister down have promised that the UK will never again put preserving tactical intelligence-sharing ahead of British values and doing what is right. Now those promises ring hollow.

Complicity in torture or the death penalty is in itself a gross human rights violation, a violation for which the UK government must be held to account if it does not force Javid to reverse his position and seek robust assurances from the US.

Martha Spurrier is a human rights barrister and the director of civil liberties and human rights organisation Liberty