The new head of Britain’s equalities watchdog has warned against the Withdrawal of the UK from a European human rights treaty in an attempt to appease rightwing opposition over immigration, noting that such would be an error.
The new chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Mary-Ann Stephenson who resumed in December, revealed the European convention on human rights (ECHR) was part of strategies in place that provides rights most people would agree were fundamental.
However, she expressed concerns that the tone of public conversation on it was often dangerous.
She said:“I think it’s really important that we have honesty in the way that we talk about human rights, and that we also have a recognition that the demonisation of migrants – creating this idea that migration causes huge risks for the country – can make the lives not just of migrants to the UK, but of ethnic minority UK citizens, very, very difficult.”
Stephenson observed a “real risk of people using, quite often, cases where human rights arguments were made in court but were not successful” when discussing the ECHR.
She referenced research from the University of Oxford early in the year that mentioned “several high-profile examples of misleading coverage, including the so-called ‘chicken nuggets’ case – widely reported as the prevention of an individual’s deportation on the basis of his child’s dislike of foreign food, despite the decision not being based on this detail and having already been overturned”.
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Political discourse has been sparked around the UK’s membership of the ECHR, mostly towards the decision in which the government seeks to deport people.
Some members on the political right have argued that the convention obstructs those efforts, while both the Conservative Party and Reform UK have said they would withdraw from the international treaty.
Stephenson called the convention “really important” due to its incorporation into the UK’s Human Rights Act and said quitting would weaken the rights everyone depends on.
She cited as examples the supreme court judgment in relation to the investigation into the rapist John Worboys, which ruled police could be held liable for serious failures – and another involving the threatened separation of an elderly couple when one needed to go into residential care.
“These are all sorts of cases where most people would think: ‘That’s the sort of thing we would want to see. Those are the sorts of rights we would want to have.’ And so I think leaving the European convention is a mistake. It weakens the rights that all of us depend on.”
The chief of the body that oversees the convention, earlier in the month said member states had taken an “important first step forward together” in agreeing to look at changes to tackle migration within its legal framework.
The Conservative home affairs spokesman Chris Philp described Stephenson’s remarks as a “disgrace” and claimed “the left” was trying to paint “those opposed to mass immigration and illegal immigration as racist”.
“This nonsense has to end. It is completely wrong that Labour’s new human rights chief dismisses legitimate concerns about mass migration and crimes committed by foreign nationals – including the recent spate of rapes and sex attacks committed by small boat illegal immigrants,” he added.
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