Starmer Should “Decouple” From ECHR, Says Jack Straw

Keir Starmer should “decouple” British laws from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to enable more migrants to be deported, former Labour home secretary Jack Straw has said. The Telegraph has more.

Jack Straw, who helped draft the UK’s 1998 Human Rights Act, said this legislation was being “misused” by UK courts to prevent the Government from deporting illegal migrants and foreign criminals.

The Act said British courts should “take account” of judgments from the ECHR but Mr Straw said courts were interpreting this as “following” the convention, which was never the intention.

He told the Financial Times: “There is no doubt at all that the convention – and crucially its interpretation – is now being used in ways which were never, ever intended when the instrument was drafted in the late 40s and early 50s.”

He said the “use or misuse” of the convention was “never anticipated when we were discussing in great detail how we incorporated human rights into British law in the mid-90s”.

The instruction for the UK to “take account” of ECHR judgments has “been interpreted as ‘follow’, when that was never the intention”, he said.

He suggested the Human Rights Act could be amended to state that British courts do not have to take account of the ECHR. He said this would be a better option than withdrawing from the ECHR, which would take many years.

Mr Straw, who also served as justice secretary during Gordon Brown’s premiership, is the second major figure from the New Labour era to urge Sir Keir to take a more radical approach towards the ECHR. …

Sir Keir Starmer has pledged that a Labour Government led by him will never withdraw from the ECHR and will treat international law with “profound respect”.

However, Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, is drawing up plans to rewrite laws to limit the scope for judges to use articles three and eight of the ECHR to block the Home Office’s removal of failed asylum seekers and foreign criminals. The articles protect the rights to a family life and against persecution.

But Labour’s opponents are going further, with Nigel Farage on Tuesday committing his Reform UK party to leaving the ECHR.

Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, is expected to make a similar commitment at her autumn conference after ordering a review into how the UK could quit the ECHR if necessary. …

However, Downing Street has said that suspending the ECHR is “not something we are looking at”. Sir Keir’s official spokesman said that the ECHR “underpins key international agreements on trade, security, migration and the Good Friday Agreement”.

“Anyone who is proposing to renegotiate the Good Friday Agreement is not serious,” he added. 

Worth reading in full.

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DiscoveredJoys
DiscoveredJoys
7 months ago

He said this would be a better option than withdrawing from the ECHR, which would take many years.

It need not take many years, especially if you ignore the ‘leaving instructions’ as no longer appropriate. There might be international criticism from those still in the ECHR or other international bodies but the world is now a different place and old institutions need a fresh justification to continue. One based on pragmatism rather than 20th century consensus.

Dinger64
7 months ago
Reply to  DiscoveredJoys

Britain needs to grow a pair and LEAVE THE ECHR! Immediately, done, gone finished with! Or what? They’ll invade? Decouple my arse!

huxleypiggles
7 months ago
Reply to  Dinger64

Exactly.

transmissionofflame
7 months ago
Reply to  DiscoveredJoys

Surely it’s very simple- we’re leaving, bye

They supposedly managed to draft the “Covid regulations” in a very short space of time- where there’s a will…

Hardliner
7 months ago

See Konstantin Kisin on YouTube: “How Russia would do Brexit!”. Hilarious …’we already left, this morning’

transmissionofflame
7 months ago
Reply to  Hardliner

Can’t find it but can imagine.

Hardliner
7 months ago

See above…I’ve found the link and posted it

transmissionofflame
7 months ago
Reply to  Hardliner

Thanks – it’s a cracker!

huxleypiggles
7 months ago

Wasn’t the drafting of the C1984 regulations completed over one weekend, all 173 pages? Apparently.

transmissionofflame
7 months ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

So they say 🙂

huxleypiggles
7 months ago
Reply to  DiscoveredJoys

Today we accept the ECHR, tomorrow we don’t. It is neither complicated nor difficult.

Dinger64
7 months ago

“Decouple”
Love it! these commie tw@ts can’t even say what they mean let along do what they say!

Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey
7 months ago

Well who would have thought it, the Commies of New Labour are now coming out to say that the laws they put in place are causing the problems we now face.so basically anyone who has been critical of them in the past was correct. Then top it off the,
Blairite wing of the Tory party who thought they were being cool are equally at fault. Basically the past 30 years have been one big mistake, just glancing around at the absolute mess they have created leads me to believe it is the only sensible thing they have said over the entire period. It’s a great shame that the only people to gain have been them, the rest of us have lost.

soundofreason
soundofreason
7 months ago
Reply to  Bill Bailey

He told the Financial Times: “There is no doubt at all that the convention – and crucially its interpretation – is now being used in ways which were never, ever intended when the instrument was drafted in the late 40s and early 50s.”

He said the “use or misuse” of the convention was “never anticipated when we were discussing in great detail how we incorporated human rights into British law in the mid-90s”.

The instruction for the UK to “take account” of ECHR judgments has “been interpreted as ‘follow’, when that was never the intention”, he said.

Straw is not ‘coming out to say that the laws they put in place are causing the problems we now face’. He’s claiming that it was ‘never anticipated when we were discussing in great detail how we incorporated human rights into British law in the mid-90s’. He’s trying to spread the blame. Belated arse covering.

Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey
7 months ago
Reply to  soundofreason

Well well, that’s a good excuse, draft laws that are bad, then blame someone else for interpreting the written act badly.
It’s clear that the laws were being interpreted as was intended, if not then the Strawman was extremely bad at his job in drafting very bad laws.

Straw is a Commie, he was in with Blair, Brown, Prescott and all the other useless commies, they wanted to destabilise the UK in a way that they thought would get them votes. It’s clear that he and the other commies have failed. It’s a shame that we have another 4 years of these useless people.

Finbar
Finbar
7 months ago
Reply to  Bill Bailey

David Starkey is pushing for the great repeal act… Repeal basically every law since nu Labour and reset to 1997

Heretic
Heretic
7 months ago
Reply to  Finbar

So is Rupert Lowe!

stewart
7 months ago

Laws need to be simple and easy to understand by all.

If Mr Straw needs to explain the original intent of his law, then clearly it was way too complicated. Probably because like so many of our laws it was probably less about order and justice and more about social engineering.

Thou shalt not kill.

There’s a simple law that doesn’t leave too much to interpretation. I doubt Moses needed to give too many explanations about what exactly that law meant…

Marcus Aurelius knew
7 months ago
Reply to  stewart

Thou shalt not kill is pretty vague, tho. Not even in self-defence?

Mrs.Croc
Mrs.Croc
7 months ago

Oh it is. If the person you are defending yourself against gets killed in the process, that’s not killing somebody. I suppose you could make a claim for suicide by the protagonist as they must have realised when they attacked you that one of the outcomes could be their own death.
it just means, you shouldn’t set out to kill somebody, no matter how much you dislike them.

Marque1
7 months ago
Reply to  stewart

Multiple translations exist of the fifth/sixth commandment; the Hebrew words לא תרצח‎ (lo tirtzach) are variously translated as “thou shalt not kill” or “thou shalt not murder”. The imperative is against unlawful killing resulting in bloodguilt. The Hebrew Bible contains numerous prohibitions against unlawful killing, but does not prohibit killing in the context of warfare (1Kings 2:5–6), capital punishment (Leviticus 20:9–16) or defending against a home invasion (Exodus 22:2–3), which are considered justified. The New Testament is in agreement that murder is a grave moral evil, and references the Old Testament view of bloodguilt.

huxleypiggles
7 months ago
Reply to  Marque1

Many thanks i appreciate your erudition.

Hound of Heaven
Hound of Heaven
7 months ago
Reply to  Marque1

Yes. Thou shalt do no murder is my understanding too.

Heretic
Heretic
7 months ago

But the Hebrew understanding is “Thou shalt not murder thy fellow Hebrews”.

Heretic
Heretic
7 months ago
Reply to  Marque1

The Hebrew interpretations apply ONLY TO HEBREWS, as the later Talmud makes very clear (see Elizabeth Dilling’s translation).

Just as the so-called “Noahide Laws”, which were actually forced through the US Congress a few years ago, apply in reality only to Gentiles. The punishment for Gentiles breaking “The Noahide Laws” is beheading.

Heretic
Heretic
7 months ago
Reply to  stewart

As the Old Testament relates, one of the very first criminal acts Moses himself committed when he reached adulthood, after being adopted and raised in Egyptian royal luxury by that Egyptian princess, was to MURDER AN EGYPTIAN for slapping the Egyptian’s own Hebrew servant, who then helped Moses to bury his Egyptian master in the sand. Moses’ crime was later discovered, so he didn’t get away with it as planned.

“Thou shalt not kill” in Moses’ Hebrew interpretation only applied to killing other Hebrews. The same went for all of the Ten Commandments, only applicable to other Hebrews, not to Gentiles.

That is not the way Christians interpret the Ten Commandments, but that is the way Hebrews did.

Marcus Aurelius knew
7 months ago

Another Brexit? Solidify all EU laws into UK law and then leave on the EU’s terms?

I dunno about anyone else, but when I decide to leave a club, I just cancel my membership fee, return the key to the members’ entrance with recorded delivery and then … stop going.

Finbar
Finbar
7 months ago

This makes me so angry. This and all the usual ‘right on’ people who’ve been so pro all the woke rubbish over the last 30 years now starting to mutter muttering about ‘going too far’ ‘maybe too much migration’ ‘maybe too many people on benefits’ etc etc etc. When they shouted down and called people like me certain names for decades for having been, what has turned out, correct.

Marcus Aurelius knew
7 months ago
Reply to  Finbar

They will still call us “awkward” though, even after they accept we were right.

Hester
Hester
7 months ago

Straw was part of the Blair Government who chose to rub our noses in Diversity, he was the man who oversaw the advent of mass immigration into this country, he was the man who oversaw the giving away of our sovreignity, he was part of the Blair Government that tore down hundreds of years of our constitution, that divided the country up and took away the rights of the English Parliament.
Its useless crying wolf now, he is one of the pack of wolves that caused the downfall of the UK and the emiseration of the British people.

mrbu
mrbu
7 months ago
Reply to  Hester

Do we actually have an “English Parliament”? The Scots, Welsh and Irish have their own. They can make their own decisions on matters that affect only their people. Whereas we only have Westminster, where the Scots, Welsh and Irish are perfectly at liberty to poke their noses into our affairs. Another example of the indigenous English being disadvantaged in favour of everyone else.

RTSC
RTSC
7 months ago

“he said leaving the ECHR would take many years.”

I don’t think so. How long does it take to say “We’re off. We’re not taking any notice of you any more. Bye.”

I rather suspect a lot of Irish people, who are also apoplectic about mass immigration ruining their country, would cheer to the rafters.

mrbu
mrbu
7 months ago
Reply to  RTSC

How long would it take for Trump to take his country out of something like the ECHR? Not many years, I’d wager.

RTSC
RTSC
7 months ago

Nothing to do with Labour shrinking to 18% in the latest Find Out Now poll, with Reform on 33%.

And the survey was carried out before Two-Tier announced they’d be appealing the closure of the Epping Migrant Hotel and Reform announced Project Restore Justice yesterday.

Hardliner
7 months ago

De-coupling, Russian-style. Konstantin Kisin at his funniest, a ‘must watch’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdbDxEe_FNk

Heretic
Heretic
7 months ago
Reply to  Hardliner

That is absolutely brilliant!

Andante
Andante
7 months ago

The Liebour Government now has a decision to make. Do they continue with the mass import of migrants, (which is, of course, the ‘progressive’ agenda to destroy Western Civilization) to deliberately make it more and more difficult for the coming Reform Government to do the mass deportations?

Or do they recognize that more and more migrants almost certainly ensures severe civil disturbances around the country and put a stop to it now.

Anyone seen the video of the 14-year-old-girl brandishing knives to ward off a Mooslime migrant who attempted to assault her in Dundee?
SHE has been arrested. That should trigger off massive demonstrations.

Heretic
Heretic
7 months ago
Reply to  Andante

Shocking, an obvious stitch-up by the Muslim invader, who keeps taunting her to show the knife, as he’s filming it on his phone, while his female Muslim supporter is making comments in the background.

EUbrainwashing
7 months ago

Legal rights are a fiction. Humans have no rights beyond those we are able to exercise. If I claim a right that no one else recognises, I will quickly discover the truth of it. This is how common law develops. The freedoms we enjoy arise from mutual recognition and agreement among our peers.

When we attempt to codify them, two problems follow:

  1. Our natural freedoms become confined to the definitions written down.
  2. The state invents new ‘rights’ which often serve its own objectives and may erode our genuine freedoms.

Liberty and freedom are often treated as interchangeable, but they are not. Liberty is what is granted to you. Freedom is what you possess inherently; it cannot be given, only taken away.

Richardk
Richardk
7 months ago

Another example of the difference between the UK and the rest of the EU when it was a member – UK slavishly implemented every single EU regulation, etc, to the letter. Other members, particularly France and Germany, implemented the bits they liked and ignored the rest

Mrs.Croc
Mrs.Croc
7 months ago

And this from the man who said that the English as a race are not worth saving.