The European Court of Human Rights and the European Union - vipers at the throat of the nation state

‘The problem today is you can end up with someone who has no right to live in your country, who you are convinced – and have good reason to be convinced – means to do your country harm.

‘And yet there are circumstances in which you cannot try them, you cannot detain them and you cannot deport them’.

David Cameron speaking in Strasbourg

AT LAST, A BRITISH politician is telling the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) something it does not wish to hear; but not quite going far enough to satisfy his own people.

            There have been many decisions taken by these judges that have enraged the British people, Abu Qatada being the latest. We are obliged to keep this terrorist on our soil only because the ECHR refuses to allow us to deport him to Jordon, where Strasbourg fears he will be tortured.

            So at great cost to the British taxpayer , the majority of whom wish rid of him, he will enjoy custody at Her Majesty’s displeasure. Where,  no doubt, he will at some time in the future call upon the services of the ECHR once again if his coca is to cold, or his prayer mat to small.

            The ECHR has a backlog of 160,000 cases. The court may have  a modernist architecture that looks like two stainless steel grain silos; but  its inner workings resemble Chancellery in Dickens’ Bleak House.

            A majority of the British people, I suggest, want this wretched institution off our backs for good. When we allowed it into our lives back in 1966, we could not have foreseen the direction it was to take; or the power it was to accrue over English law.

            We have given a foreign court the power to override decisions that should be the sole business of, in the first instance, the people at the ballot box, followed by our elected lawmakers and  the judiciary.  The structure of English law has a timeline covering centuries. English law is the business of English people, and no other.

            The ECHR may be the wisest, fairest, and the most inspired of institutions; but it should have  no business; or carry any remit within these isles. Our politicians, as they have done with the EU, have made voting in a government a meaningless and pointless endeavour.

            So, after centuries of struggle to win the franchise, the British people are now left pondering if it was at all worthwhile for their ancestors to take the trouble. If we can no longer be our own masters, and have to accept a foreign court’s decision over one of our own, then the game is up.

BRUSSELS AND STRASBOURG, are our  modern equivalent of the 17^th century Stuarts. Sadly we lack an Oliver Cromwell to fight our corner, and help see them off. Our political masters are to a man and women, in some degree or other, sympathetic to both European cities and what they represent.

            David Cameron’s speech will upset many on the continent, as his language was meant to do, in order to appeal to a euro-sceptic public and win him Brownie points in the polls.

            But he is as devoted to the European ideal as the Merkozy. He inhales euro-sceptic fumes for the sake of pacifying his backbenchers, and winning plaudits from the British people. But he will never allow an addiction to such vapours to overcome him. He, like Nick Clegg, sees the nation state as a dinosaur – the only difference between them being, is the respective natures of their very different backbenchers, as well as the average Conservative Party member.

            The only Party that can be trusted by any euro-sceptic in Westminster, is UKIP. They and only they concentrate their efforts on removing the United Kingdom from Europe. Theirs is a simple message, which is uncomplicated by other issues. This country’s sovereignty is paramount above all other consideration; which is why UKIP is restricted to a single issue and should remain so within Europe.

            I do not support UKIP. For nearly forty years of my life, I have supported and voted Labour. But at the last election I broke with tradition and voted Tory; so when I suggest that UKIP is the only answer to seeking the release of this nation, from becoming just another canton within a Greater Europe, I do so with regret because none of the other parties have lived up to their promise.

           

THE TROUBLE WITH UKIP however is that they lack a Cromwell to lead the charge against the collapse of the nation state. If UKIP had such a leader which the British people could follow; not only would they win a victory over the European Union, but evolve into a party of tradition which could one day replace the Conservative Party.

            Two thirds of the British parliament have been seduced by the European ideal and are fully prepared to accept it, whatever its deficiencies. To such people the ECHR’s outrageous rulings solicit a mere shrug of the shoulders.

            Although separate institutions, the ECHR and the EU share the same parents: liberal idealism dreamt them both up, and gave birth to them. Europe may have been in need of such a court when European nations such as Portugal, Spain, and Greece, were under the rule of fascist dictators; and part of Germany under a communist dictatorship. But I consider it offensive that we have to obey its rulings, when Britain’s human rights record is second to none.

            It is one huge, overstaffed and unneeded quango, that, as far as the UK is concerned should be well rid of. Our courts and only our time honoured courts should judge human rights abuses, if any, in the UK.

            As for outside the UK, do we not have the United Nations; or yes, if other European countries want it, the ECHR. But we in Britain elect our lawmakers on our behalf to provide us with a fully functioning criminal justice system. The ECHR is, like all quangos, undemocratic, and as such, one would have thought,  it falls foul of itself.