tufty wrote:However, the ECHR is part of the Council of Europe, not the European Union, two entirely different entities. The European Court of Justice, however, is part of the EU. I haven't heard anything about the UK pulling out of the Council of Europe, only the EU, so the ECHR will still, as far as I can tell, have primacy.
True enough. But, well, do you really have any great confidence in that?
In a sense, I can tell that you don't, because you've inserted the caveats and qualifiers - "I haven't heard...", "as far as I can tell", etc. - in there, even though you are absolutely factually right to be correcting me on this.
As it stands, perfectly right. But you're likely going to get Theresa May as Prime Minister - the woman caught lying about not being able to deport a terrorist because he owned a cat, which was the lynchpin of her campaign to get us out of the Convention on Human Rights altogether. The other Leadsom woman has been canvassing support with promises to get rid of the minimum wage, to get rid of maternity and paternity leave, to get rid of unfair dismissal laws and so forth.
The Conservatives are, as we speak, having a pissing contest over who can propose the most evil and immoral agenda possible to win their leadership battle, trying to outdo each other on who hates human rights the most.
In such a climate, is there any reason to hold onto any hope?
Particularly because they'll probably put it up for another referendum and the politically illiterate poor will be tricked into yet again positively voting to be shat on from a great height again. Yay, democracy!
We already know the rhetoric because they started the campaigning long ago. "Human rights are for terrorists. If you support human rights, then you're letting the terrorists win!". Let's watch that thoroughly debunked story about a terrorist not being deported because he owned a cat come up again, just like the straight bananas. Not true. Proved not true. But it only affects the electorate if the fuckers can be bothered to, you know, pay attention to what's going on and a majority - the majority needed to win any vote - simply don't. Just tell them, in a Murdoch daily, that "the big banks, who stole all our money, want to keep human rights for the terrorists and steal all our jobs!" and they'll happily be all ticking the "please torture me" boxes at the polling booths.
Because democracy depends on an informed electorate and, clearly, what we've got right now is simply not remotely close to that anymore.
Okay, yes, I'm being pessimistic here. But you can surely understand why.
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
