Stuart Weir (Cambridge, Democratic Audit): There is a great irony in the position that the government and Conservatives adopt on the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. One of Gordon Brown's specious red lines is designed to prevent the Charter from taking effect in the UK and to keep the European Court of Justice's nose out of the UK's affairs. William Hague has denounced the Charter as an intrusion. And now the chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee seems to have implicitly joined them in fearing that the ECJ might exercise some additional jurisdiction in the UK. Of course, parliamentary sovereignty was lost ages ago, under the Tories, and the ECJ already rules here on matters of EU law.
But isn't there also an irony in that the two main parties are defending the British people from human rights that most people in this country want? They do so explicitly to please the CBI, and to protect our flexible labour market and control the trade unions, but experts on European affairs don't buy this explanation, saying that there is no evidence that the CBI is that bothered. No, it is the time-honoured defence of 'the British way of doing things' against external encroachments and democratic reform at home - in other words, to preserve their own flexible labour market in government. They sign up to human rights and labour treaties without any intention of honouring them in British law - they are for lesser breeds outside British law. In this sense, the Human Rights Act was an aberration - for which we should thank John Smith - from which both main parties now seek to resile.
