The Key to Border Control
Any British party seeking election on an anti-immigration ticket will need to leave the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), which provides a large loophole for illegal immigrants to enter the UK and stay, with the legal backing of Strasbourg judges. Nigel Farage’s Reform Party, set to sweep to power by the end of the decade, has promised to leave the ECHR, with the Conservative Party lately following suit.
However, this move is more complex than simply repealing the Human Rights Act which incorporates the Convention. Since the Convention is considered part of the UK’s Constitution, the opposition will demand a referendum which it would be hard for any government to refuse. Recent opinion polls have shown that most British voters would actually vote against such a proposal.
This public inertia is hardly surprising.
Why the Public Isn’t Convinced
So far the only reason given by the Tories and by Reform for leaving the ECHR is that it prevents us from handling migrants and expelling terrorists and criminals as we see fit. This limited line of reasoning finds favour only with part of the British electorate. The name of the Convention, "European Convention on Human Rights", makes many people think that leaving the Convention means scrapping our Human Rights as such and obviously this is not popular.
Yet, the failures of the ECHR are so much wider than the reasons so far advanced by Reform and by the Tories. People need to be shown that the Convention also fails to protect freedom of speech, the right to life and the right to a fair trial: rights which all British citizens, even the “wokey” ones among us, consider to be essential. Above all, the ECHR fails to protect freedom from long months, even years of arbitrary imprisonment "on suspicion, pending investigation" with no public hearing.
For us in Britain this is prevented by Habeas Corpus - the most essential and most essentially British liberty of all. Britain enjoyed all these liberties centuries before the ECHR was drafted and set up after World War II.
Broadening the Message
Realisation of this would reach those parts of the electorate that are not convinced by the ‘border control’ argument, or that have been seduced by the false assumptions of this cringe-making skit video with actor Patrick Stewart, which asserts that it is the ECHR that has "given" us our Human Rights.
I raised the alarm in the Daily Express three years ago but, as far as I can see, information showing the overall nature of the ECHR remains buried mostly on the Bruges Group and the Freedom Association websites.
The leaderships of the UK’s two major opposition Parties now have the media fire-power for the message to reach all sections of the electorate. They must broaden their critique of the ECHR if they are sincere about leaving it, and if they really mean to convince the broad public of the desirability of leaving it.
The Tories were trounced in last year's General Election precisely because they had failed to stop the flood of migration. If they and/or Reform manage to be elected on a promise of regaining control of our borders and then fail to do so because they can’t persuade people of the need to leave the ECHR, they will be toast. It takes time and effort to change public perceptions. We need to start doing this now.
Torquil Dick-Erikson
Legal Journalist
