Plans to abandon the ECHR are arrogant and inhumane

Editorial: If the draconian laws currently being discussed are eventually passed, and the threat to the ECHR carried through, then Britain will have all but abolished the right to claim asylum

Rishi Sunak appears intent on all but abolishing the right to claim asylum (UK parliament/AFP/Getty)

Criminals tend not to pre-announce their plans for perfidy but in the case of this government, it seems to be something of a habit. Not so very long ago a government minister, Brandon Lewis, got up in the House of Commons and declared that the UK fully intended to unilaterally renounce parts of the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement and infamously admitted that “yes this does break international law in a very specific and limited way”.

Now the prime minister is reportedly ready to do exactly the same with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Ministers are said to be considering options for clauses that can be added to new legislation in order to ensure deportations go ahead in breach of the ECHR, should the UK courts or Strasbourg so determine. Indeed, if the ECHR (nothing to do with the EU so still relevant to the UK) has the audacity to do its job and rule against the UK, then the UK will withdraw from it.

This is hardly an example to set for other nations who wilfully break international law and defile human rights. It’s especially shaming because Winston Churchill was one of the guiding powers behind the ECHR, and Britain was a proud founding signatory in 1951. It was only a few years after the Holocaust, and the mood in Europe then was “never again”.