A British Bill of Rights?

One of the most high profile and controversial laws passed in the UK in recent years was the Human Rights Act 1998, which applied to UK law the European Convention on Human Rights. While some have welcomed it, others, notably Tory leader David Cameron, have criticised it for making it difficult to deport terror suspects and for providing a ‘veneer of respectability’ underneath which civil liberties can be eroded. Because of what Cameron calls ‘the need to enshrine civil liberties in a way that is relevant to our British traditions and the need to guide the judiciary and the executive towards proportionality and common sense’, he believes the Human Rights Act should be replaced with a British Bill of Rights. If the Tories win the next election this will be high on their to-do list.

‘He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.’

THOMAS PAINE (1737-1809), author of Rights of Man

‘We can live in a world with airy-fairy civil liberties and believe the best of everybody—and then they destroy us. This is not the world we live in.’

DAVID BLUNKETT, UK Home Secretary, 11 November 2001

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