← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Leveller
Thread ID: 4621 | Posts: 2 | Started: 2003-01-26
2003-01-26 13:01 | User Profile
The (UK) Telegraph says withdraw from European Convention on Human Rights. Although them saying it is miles away from it happening, it's still more than I would expect. European 'law', along with UN charters, is the Europe equivalent of Supreme court activism in the US. Outrageous decisions are justified as 'complying with the law'. For instance, the entire female population of Pakistan is automatically entitled to asylum in the UK, as is anyone who turns up with a fatal disease (that's why AIDS has shot up in the UK). Only if the UN Convention on asylum seekers and the ECHR are gone will any European country even have the sovereign authority to hold back the tide.
What Blunkett should do (Filed: 17/01/2003)
[url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml;$sessionid$FDMSLV20V0G5BQFIQMGSFFOAVCBQWIV0?xml=/opinion/2003/01/17/dl1701.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2003/01/17/ixopinion.html]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jh.../ixopinion.html[/url] ... We are constrained both by the 1951 UN Convention on asylum seekers and the European Convention on Human Rights. Each one on its own appears reasonable and humane. But taken together, and then combined with the current deluge of supposed asylum seekers, they make it impossible for us to vet applicants quickly and accurately. First, this enabled large-scale immigration under another name. Now it is clear that it adds significantly to the danger of terrorist attack***.
David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, could get up in the Commons and announce that the safety of the people of this country is the first duty of its government. He could say that he would seek powers and funds to deal with the majority of asylum seekers immediately on arrival, instead of letting most of them settle here. This would mean, for the time being, that Britain, since it cannot pick and choose which parts to subscribe to, would have to withdraw altogether from the European Convention on Human Rights and therefore the Council of Europe. The Government would have to amend the Human Rights Act. All this, he might argue, was regrettable but necessary. ...
** The background to this is a policeman murdered by ricin-smuggling Algerian terrorists last week. The terrorists were asylum seekers, and kept their poison in the accomodation they were provided with at taxpayers expense, a privilege few actual citizens can expect.*
2003-01-26 21:58 | User Profile
Let's not get carried away, L, this is after all just an opinion piece in the Torygraph.
However I understand that France has already derogated from the infamous Article 3 of the ECHR, and is able to sidestep the principle of defoulement on the grounds of national security. So any Algerians that play up in Paree soon find themselves back in their homeland (if they don't scarper to England first).
It looks like Tony Blur is testing the waters for a UK derogation of Article 3 along similar lines:
'We must deal with asylum', says PM
[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2695787.stm]http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2695787.stm[/url]