Leaving the ECHR isn't worth the hassle

I’ve been banging on about this all week so I will change the record after this post. There’s just a couple more points that need to be made.

I've been surprised and disappointed how little debate there's been over the Braverman ECHR report. It seems to have fallen flat - but it is the first salvo in what is to be a long and arduous debate in the not too distant future. I found the report useful, though. I've been having to guess what that end of the right has in mind but it's nice to have it from the horse's mouth. It adequately summarises what they believe and it’s probably their final word. There is to be no more debate or intellectual inquiry. This is how they operate.

The fact that Matt Goodwin has effectively endorsed it tells us that the report is to be holy scripture on the Right, and the model Farage will eventually fall in with. Twas the same with Brexit.... Farage agitates for a thing... the Tory right give it form... and the Farage clan follows in the absence of anything else on the table. I could support a plan to leave the ECHR... just not this one. But this is all we're getting.

From experience with Brexit, I know there is no point in even venturing a better, more detailed plan, because this report has Westminster bubble prestige, and as far as they’re concerned, this is Rolls Royce research - regardless of the fact they talk about blowing up the entire Brexit settlement in just two paragraphs. But who am I to complain? The author boasts “This is the most detailed plan yet”.

All the same, the report has helped me make up my mind on the issue once and for all. I really don’t think leaving the leaving the ECHR is worth the hassle.

The thing for me, is that if you start talking about leaving all these conventions and treaties, then you tacitly admit they are supreme. You are stating that it is necessary for us to leave in order to restore British sovereignty. I don't think this way any more. Parliament is sovereign and as it's elected, it's legitimate in ways foreign and domestic judges are not. As as such, all that is necessary is for a British government to assert its legitimacy over international law and for parliament to assert its sovereignty by acting as it sees fit. That's the end of it. Look at Israel. There are countless rulings and resolutions against them and you don't see them grovelling for forgiveness.

There comes a point where a democratic state simply has to assert a few basic facts of life. Whatever the intent of the ECHR, it was not intended to facilitate mass illegal immigration, and if, through obsolescence, that's what it's actually doing, along with the respective non-refoulement conventions, then any elected government has an obligation to ignore it. We just need a PM to say "We're elected, you're not, we're doing this thing, f*ck you".

If, then, anyone's got a problem with that, let them take their best shot. If the EU finds our deportation laws unsatisfactory, let them sanction us. If they want to suspend parts of the TCA, let them. If the ECHR wants to chuck us out of the Council of Europe, then let them. But I'm betting they won't - unless they have a collective death wish, in which case, let them die on that hill. There's no reason for us to pull the plug on them. Just let them overreach to the point of vanishing up their own backsides.

As much as anything, the ECHR, as noted previously, is the least of the problem. Since 1980, the ECtHR has handled just 29 UK cases involving deportation or extradition, ruling against the UK (i.e., blocking removal) in 13 of them—averaging about one block every 4.5 years. In the last 10 years (up to around 2023–2024), there have been only 8 UK cases related to expulsion or extradition.

Temporary orders to halt actions like deportations are rare for the UK. Since 2017, the court received 660 requests in UK cases but granted only 15 (about 2%, or 2 per year on average). In 2023, just one was issued (regarding expulsion to the US).

Moreover, the ECtHR doesn't "block" most UK deportations; it intervenes only in exceptional cases (e.g., credible risk of torture under Article 3 or disproportionate family interference under Article 8). From 2016–2021, the UK deported 27,507 foreign national offenders, with only about 3% successfully challenging on human rights grounds domestically—far fewer reach the ECtHR. The problem is clearly British judges and the Human Rights Act.

Anyone can cobble together a reasonably convincing case for leaving the ECHR. I’ve done it myself. It is a rotten, dysfunctional institution but, ultimately, it’s not worse than the rot closer to home, which is a much more ugent problem. The bottom line is that parliament is sovereign in its own house. Nobody, not even the ECHR tells it what to do. Obeying absurd ECHR rulings is a choice. For my part, I have no desire to relitigate Brexit or get bogged down in Northern Irish politics for years when all that's required is for a government to do its job for once.

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Meanwhile, work continues on the website project. My web guy is hard at it. I want to nudge him for an update but I know better than to disturb him. He gets grouchy. It’ll be ready soon and he’ll tell me when. I am itching to get cracking with it though. I’m quite excited about it.