Thread by @marthaspurrier

BREAKING: The moment we feared is here. Tonight the Government has announced scrapping the Human Rights Act & introducing a Bill of Rights. Here's what you need to know about this regressive & scary step...🧵

https://twitter.com/guardiannews/status/1539352640236437504

1. Enshrines the toxic idea of rights being conditional on good behaviour. Rights become gifts the state can take away if it deems you to be troublesome. This means impunity for rights abuses, particularly against people in prison, police custody, protestors

2. Strips family life rights for migrants (Article 8). People who commit a crime will be deported unless it would cause their child/dependent "overwhelming, unavoidable harm". You could grow up here, have your whole family here, a life here, & still be put on a plane...

This cruel, racist move despite the fact that only 7.8% of criminal deportation cases successfully rely on Article 8. Those few cases are a necessary judicial safety net to prevent extremely disproportionate removals...

This is not a popular policy: it's a hard right play for a few votes. In 2020 a majority of the public said people convicted of a crime should not be deported if they came to the UK as kids:
yougov.co.uk/topics/politic…

3. Prevents courts from putting legal obligations on the state "to actively protect someone's human rights" (yep, that's a direct quote). Farewell to the only legal tools available to the Hillsborough families, survivors of Worboys attacks, patients at risk of suicide & many more

4. Stops human rights claims being brought against military operations. Rights abuses committed in war (like torture of civilian Baha Mousa by UK troops) will go unpunished. Members of armed forces (like victims of Snatch Land Rover disaster) will be unprotected

5. Creates a procedural barrier to justice - you have to get permission before you can bring a human rights case, demonstrating you've suffered "significant disadvantage". Supposedly to deal with "trivial human rights claims" which is of course a contradiction in terms

6. Scraps Rule 39 meaning the European Court of Human Rights can't intervene on a temporary, exceptional, emergency basis to avert "a real risk of serious & irreversible harm" ie Gov to have license to put people at risk of serious & irreversible harm

7. Commits to staying in the European Convention on Human Rights. But the Bill of Rights is a weaker, watered down imitation of the Convention, and Council of Europe may expel us for failing to protect rights. That would put us in the company of Russia.

We have our work cut out for us in defeating this Bill. The future of human rights in the UK depends on us.

Join @libertyhq, sign the petition, write to your MP, take to the streets, tell your friends & family #SaveYourRights
libertyhumanrights.org.uk/fundamental/st…