We need to do more than just rip up the Human Rights Act

Although I would be glad to see the Human Rights Act abolished, it would be foolish to think that this would be the end of our problems. Britain has been a signatory to the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) since 1951, and the Government was being constantly undermined by these laws long before Labour came to power. In 1996 for example, the Court ruled that Britain had acted illegally in killing several unarmed IRA terrorists in Gibraltar, this was despite the fact that the IRA were planning an atrocity.

Until Britain gets away from it's "rights" culture , little is going to change. For example, France has the ECHR signed into law, yet French Judges routinely deport terror suspects, and to countries with poor human rights records, which begs the question: Why can't we do the same? Britain is unlikely to leave the ECHR, as being a signatory to the ECHR is a condition for being a member of the EU, but unless we change the way we interpret the law, we're literally holding ourselves hostage to terrorism.

The futility of simply changing the law was highlighted in both in yesterday's Times, in Sunday's Telegraph, and also by Janet Daley.