Molly Pollock looks at the mess the UK government has made of their inhuman policy to send immigrants to Rwanda
Vulnerable refugees and the ECHR
Recently politics in the UK certainly haven’t been dull or boring. The very opposite, as concerns hit the level of fury over the asylum seekers selected to be deported to Rwanda under Home Secretary Pritti Patel’s agreement with that country. Several days of furious action culminated in lawyers getting some of those on board the plane taken off. Then, literally at the eleventh hour, a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights stopped the chartered flight taking off on its 4000 mile trip. But the stay of deportation is only until the judicial review process on the arrangement next month, so deportations could still be on the cards.
And what we weren’t told about this agreement with Rwanda was that it’s actually an exchange. So an equivalent number refugees from Rwanda will make their way to the UK. So what is the purpose of the stress caused to people who have lost everything and been through nightmares to find a safer place to live?
Cue annoyance at the ECHR interference by many who did not realise that the ECHR has nothing to do with the EU and was born in 1949 out of the ruins of WWII to do everything possible to prevent inhumanity.
Although no longer a member of the EU, the UK, at present, remains a member of the Council of Europe and a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, accepting judgements from the courts. Today there have been mutterings about the UK leaving, wanting to be free to control its own borders and laws. If the UK were to leave it would be in the company of one other country – Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.
This tweet from Tommy Shepherd MP really makes you wonder what these anti-human rights Tories are on
There is ECHR and ECHR
The Financial Times gave this useful note on the differences in a newsletter yesterday
“Now, the European Convention on Human Rights (not to be confused with the European Court of Human Rights, which exists to safeguard the convention) is one of the named safeguards in the Good Friday Agreement. Also, the UK’s continued membership of various EU crime-fighting initiatives is contingent on the UK’s continuing membership of the convention as well. Actually leaving the convention would cause an internal row in the Tory party and come at a hefty cost to the government’s stated objectives.”
Not to mention a further hefty cost to the UK’s and the Tory party’s rapidly declining reputation.