Cameron threatens to scrap Human Rights Act
The danger of Blair's lurch to the right, when it comes to talk of deporting suspected foreign terrorists to countries where they may be subjected to torture, was revealed yesterday when David Cameron seized the baton by threatening to scrap the Human Rights Act if it stands in the way of possible future deportations.
Human rights legislation has come under sustained attack this week because of two unrelated cases, one involving a murder by a man who had been released after spending 16 years in prison for rape, and the other involving a group of Afghan hijackers who have been allowed to stay in Britain.This is ill thought out rubbish, but it is a natural consequence of the recent language that Blair has adopted, when he talks of wanting to reverse international law on this issue.Mr Cameron's intervention has won him support from Britain's biggest selling newspaper, The Sun - a prize coveted by every opposition leader - but could come at the price of undermining his own attempts to change the image of the Conservative Party.
Mr Cameron told yesterday's Sun that it is "close to impossible" to deport foreign nationals who pose a threat to the UK. He added: "It is wrong to undermine public safety by allowing the human rights of dangerous criminals to fly in the face of common sense. The Government's attitude has been complacent. It refuses to recognise that the problem is compounded by the interpretation of the European Convention and the passage of the Government's own Human Rights Act."
A spokesman added later that Mr Cameron's policy could also involve Britain "temporarily" withdrawing from the European Convention, to renegotiate some of its clauses.
We should remember that they are talking about people merely suspected of wanting to cause harm, not people who have actually been found guilty of any crime. This is also a natural outcome of the suspension of Habeas Corpus, the notion that all men should be considered innocent unless found guilty by a jury of their peers.
What I find absolutely extraordinary about this, is that both Blair and Cameron are choosing to pick a fight that they are guaranteed to lose, both vaulting over each other to appeal to the Sun readers mentality that "something must be done" about this.
Both of these men are surely aware that a withdrawal from the European Convention is not a serious option? To do so would render the UK an international pariah state.
And, anyway, they can tear up British legislation but that would only force the issue to be decided by European courts where they would face certain defeat.
And this is the final proof that what we are actually witnessing is the very worst kind of grandstanding, a playing to the crowd that ignores all political realities in preference for a few cheap headlines.
There is a serious discussion to be had about how we protect ourselves from possible attack whilst, simultaneously, protecting our civil liberties.
Both Blair and Cameron appear to regard this as a choice between one and the other, demanding that the latter be sacrificed to ensure the former.
This is where the real debate about terrorism lies. What sacrifices are we, as a nation, prepared to make to assist in making ourselves less vulnerable to attack?
I suspect that we are not prepared to go anywhere near as far as these two right wing politicians presume.
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