Thread by @AdamWagner1

Dominic Raab is well known in legal circles as a clever ideologue who has failed to push through a replacement for the Human Rights Act despite years of trying.

Not a good omen

Raab has been a (relatively ineffective) bete noire of Human Rights Act and European Convention on Human Rights for 10 years. Wrote a book called "Strasbourg in the dock" in 2011 which argued the European Court of Human Rights had overstepped it's mandate civitas.org.uk/pdf/Strasbourg…

He advocated since at least 2009 to scrap Human Rights Act and replace it with a British Bill of Rights (dominicraab.com/2009/10/11/scr…) and was responsible for - or at least a motivating force behind - that political mess which was a huge waste fo time for successive governments

Here is an excellent 2015 article by @davidallengreen on Raab's appointment as a Justice Minister (dominicraab.com/2009/10/11/scr…). Raab's "misty invocations" of Magna Carta are wonderful for motivating Tory grassroots but not great for people whose rights have been abused'

Once Raab and Gove were the team responsible for the British Bill of Rights, I reiceved some insight into what was being discussed. There were many "misty invocations" of ancient rights, British exceptionalism, wonderful common law, even going back to a kind of Commonwealth law.

It was pretty but unworkable. The thing Raab always missed is that Human Rights and European Convention on Human Rights work and the UK makes necessary compromises to be part of, and lead, an international set of human rights standards.

As I said, an ideologue who had an idea 10 years ago and stuck with it. It says something about a politician that his 10 year focus - his *life-time policy ambition* - has been to criticise and weaken the international human rights system the UK was instrumental in building

Appreciate that Raab paints himself as supporting a kind of "middle way" on human rights, a skeptical friend. But he has been relentlessly critical for so long, and so *unbending*, that his self-portrait just doesn't stack up.

One more point.

Raab's elevation to a front line Ministerial post is a clear and present danger to the European Convention on Human Rights.

Remember May herself suggested we should withdraw. Raab is a (political) life time sceptic. Brexiteers openly say ECHR is next after EU.

Some people in my TL making the case that Raab has been a useful libertarian skeptic of human rights. I just don't see it. Proper libertarians are important for human rights - they can support the movement from the right (though with differences) and good on free speech. But...

... what, exactly, has Raab (and his 'libertarian' housemate David Davis) actually achieved with their libertarianism? This may sound mean but from where I have been standing for the past 10 years the answer is nothing except needless time wasted on the 'British Bill of Rights'

Raab has spent a very long time indeed criticising the Human Rights Act and European Convention on Human Rights. But over that very long time, and with all that effort, he has failed to propose workable practical solutions and build any kind of political consensus for change.

There is another possibility: Raab's ideas haven't come to fruition because although they were reasonably popular in Tory Party and with public, the Tories just haven't had a decent enough majority to implement them.

That is far scarier than my theory that Raab is incompetent