Thread by @RuthfulThe

10 facts
1. The EC(t)HR emerged out of the interwar French far-right. It was invented & proposed at the Hague Congress by a group of Catholic fascists to end parliamentary democracy - they had previously written to Hitler to praise him for having put an end to liberal democracy.

https://twitter.com/AdamWagner1/status/1802695683146695013

2. Holocaust memory played zero (0.00000000) role in its creation. This myth was invented in the 1980s to cover up the Convention's "impure origins".

There were no "noble intentions" behind it; the Convention has no "pristine history".

3. Churchill had no sincere interest in (or knowledge of) it and made no contribution to its creation or institutionalisation.

While out of power, he used it as a short-lived tactical ploy to (in a memorable phrase) "cuckold Labour" in the nascent European space.

4. One British lawyer played a peripheral role in its drafting (Maxwell-Fyfe). He did so not on behalf of the country, the govt or his party (Tories): he thought Clement Attlee was a totalitarian dictator, compared him to a Nazi and wanted a court to stop him (he failed).

5. Rights emerged "by accident" in the 1970s. The ECJ launched a coup in 1964 in claiming it had legal supremacy over the EEC. The German courts only accepted this by asking it to protect 'rights'. But the EU had no "rights" of its own - so it "borrowed" them from the ECHR.

6. The living instrument policy was created under the Presidency of Judge Pallieri in the 70s. A devout Catholic, he had praised the wartime conduct of Germany & Italy - and claimed that the European legal order was still that of the Holy Roman Empire: Westphalia an irrelevance.

7. Although media attention focuses on the judges, it's often the Court's permanent legal bureaucracy (Registry) that drafts decisions and is the éminence grise; eg they maintain off-the-record contact with select British NGOs, sharing insider information for strategic cases.

8. Far from being "separate" the ECJ and ECHR are systemically interconnected. The ECJ's legitimacy was built on ECHR (see 5) and the judges are in regular, secret contact (emails, etc) to make sure the two jurisdictions don't diverge. The ECtHR cites EU (case)law systemically.

9. Labour AND Tory Wet NGOs first suggested incorporation in 1968 to hinder the state from unilaterally stopping undesirable commonwealth immigration.
ECHR hegemony must be seen in the light of the domestic hegemony now enjoyed by such groups (in parties, civil service, courts).

(to be honest that's probably the most important point)
eg does the Court launder NGO's opinions, or do NGOs launder the govt's opinions? It's all so incestuous - questions like that are futile and even meaningless.
random example:

10. Bonus: Keir Starmer believes the ECHR is anyway "redundant" to his struggle to "dismantle" private "property entitlements".
(1995 - he was older when he wrote that than I am now)

In short, a highly organised cadre of anti-democratic British lawyers captured a framework invented by crypto-fascists, and invented a new history for it.
However - that same group (eg Starmer) also captured the institutions of the British state. Abolishing 1 is easy. As for 2...