It is, of course, lunacy to have £2,500 of taxpayers’ money sent to Abu Qatada as per the instructions of the European Court of Human Rights. But what would a Conservative government do about this? It is crucial to remember that David Cameron’s proposed Bill of Rights would itself enact the ECHR and, therefore, not be much use. As it stands, it’s more of a media decoy – and this need not be so.
The UK remains a sovereign country – all it would take is an act of Parliament declaring that the Bill of Rights would outrank any other jurisdiction and that we have our own laws. Not that we disagree with the aims of the ECHR, it’s just that its application to English law is causing too many problems and leading to a sense of injustice.
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