Thread by @AlasdairMack66

Of course we don’t yet know whether to take the Home Office’s latest idea any more seriously than wave machines or Ascension Island, but what seems likely it involves performative viciousness against some of the world’s most vulnerable people 1/

Inhuman & degrading treatment is banned by Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which also bans torture, but the controversial aspect (for the Tories) is the way it prevents people being expelled to die or suffer intensely from physical/ mental illness 2/

The principle that it’s inhuman to send seriously ill people to die or suffer great anguish was upheld recently by our Supreme Court, following a decision of the European Court of Human Rights called Paposhvili 3/
supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-201…

But this has been a frustration to politicians & the Home Office for years because it applies even the person concerned happens to have committed offences, and it’s absolute, ie you don’t balance the harm to the person against any supposed public interest in deportation 4/

So could the Home Office succeed in redefining inhuman treatment? As @SydBolton11 has pointed out, they’ve previously had considerable success in imposing a harsh approach to the right to private & family life on the courts, but 5/

https://twitter.com/sydbolton11/status/1317712623576768513?s=21

>since there’s no “public interest” get-out or excuse for torture or inhuman/ degrading treatment, there’s less scope for the govt/ parliament to impose their own approach to these questions. And the UK would also be constrained by the views of the European Court, so 6/

>there’s potential for a clash between the UK’s approach and that in Europe - and yes, that may be the whole point.

Either way, the govt seems to have decided to have picked as a potential political battleground the lives & deaths of desperately, even terminally ill people.
7/7

*it* seems likely, sorry