Tower to GB-Rwanda 01

[Kaz]

There was an 'expert' on the television yesterday saying that if the UK comes out of the ECHR we will be the pariahs of Europe.

Seeing as the UK and Winston Churchill were prime movers in setting up the ECHR, it would seem that way to many, quite apart from the damage it would do to the Good Friday Agreement. Also, how can soooooo many people (obviously nobody on here) make the assumption that just because it has the word European in its title, it is part of the EU? For the record, I think the Rwanda plan is disgusting, I still remember what Rwandans did to their own back in 1994.

This! 100%

[Suff]

The confusion is partly to do with the EU itself and how everything has been named. I can't really think that it is anything other than deliberate.

How many actually know the difference between the Council of Europe and the European Council. Yes they are very different. Also how many people know the difference between a human rights abuse brought to the CJEU (the Court of Justice European Union), or a human rights case brought before the ECHR (The European Court of Human Rights)????

Even then who knows the difference between the ECHR and the ECHR? They're the same you idiot! Actually not. The European Convention on Human rights and the European Court Of Human Rights are two different things.

Now as to the UK leaving the ECHR breaching the Good Friday Agreement.

Bollocks.

Go read it here. There is better formatting elsewhere but this will do.

The UK is committed to provide a Bill of Rights, which incorporates and exceeds the ECHR provisions, for NI, specifically. Something no government has done since the signing, including Blair who signed it. The UK is not committed to being a signatory to the ECHR, it is committed to a bill of rights, for NI ONLY, based on the ECHR and exceeding it for local NI issues.

Ireland, on the other hand, is committed to upgrading it's own legislation to incorporate the ECHR, additional commitments (already ratified by the UK), AND the NI bill of rights created by the UK.

I can see the confusion. The Irish think that because they are bound into the ECHR forever, the UK must be too otherwise the GFA is broken. This is not true.

Go read the document.

The biggest threat to the GFA has nothing to do with the ECHR. It has to do with no assembly in Stormont. The assembly in Stormont is the founding cornerstone of the GFA. If it is not there, then the GFA is toast. The biggest threat to the NI Assembly is the NI protocol in the EU withdrawal treaty. One the EU refuses to talk about. Talk about perceptions being 100% in the wrong place.

Personally I think that dumping our ratification on the convention would have to drive a bill of rights for NI, something which is a cornerstone of the GFA. That would be a good thing right? NO? Better check your motivations.