Today the NewStatesman has launched a scathing attack on Theresa May’s human rights record.
Theresa May cannot be trusted with our national security. Her ineptitude was evident in her speech following the London Bridge attack, which came across as a campaign speech. Rather than soothing the nation and appealing for calm and caution, May chose to ramp up fear and regurgitate policies from her days as home secretary. Much has already been written about the problems with her appeal to “British values”, the issues with her call for increased regulation of the internet and her record in reducing police numbers – which happened on her watch. But just as important is the veiled attack on Britain’s human rights framework.
A core point of the article highlights the Conservative Party’s intense hatred of the Human Rights Act (HRA), and their desire to see it scrapped:
Scrapping the HRA has been Conservative policy for several years. In March 2011, soon after it came to power, the government set up the Commission on a Bill of Rights, with the duty to research and report on replacing the HRA with a British Bill of Rights. The commission reported its findings in December 2012, with seven out of nine members voting in favour. The promise to repeal the HRA has been part of the Conservative manifesto for several elections now, including a promise in this year’s manifesto to ‘consider our human rights legal framework when the process of leaving the EU concludes’.
This raises the question; if the Theresa May remains in power after Brexit, what kind of human rights protection will the British people be left with under a Conservative government?
