Anthony Barnett (London, OK): In a striking article in London’s pre-holiday Evening Standard (not on line) David Davis had a go at the Chindamo affair. He understood that the decision to let him stay is based on an EU directive not the Human Rights Act, nonetheless the Act was the central target of his piece. The article shows that Davis thinks - but has still not escaped that weird constitutional cowardice that has for so long afflicted Tory attitudes. He writes,
Britain has a long tradition of respecting the fundamental freedoms of its citizens, coupled with the social responsibilities that go with them. Labour has undermined both.
The proliferation of the language of “rights” into every nook and cranny of life has been accompanied by an equally aggressive attack on fundamental liberties, including extension of detention without trial, the erosion of trial by jury and the ban on demonstrations within a kilometre of Parliament. Meanwhile Labour has sold human rights as all things to all people, destroying their credibility with many decent, law-abiding members of the public.
I’d describe it differently but it's true that Labour under Blair has been both reforming and centralising at the same time. What to do, then?
We would replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights. We do not need to slavishly follow the ECHR under UK law. France doesn’t. Germany doesn’t. They wrote their own constitutional laws, tailored to their own specific needs. A Bill of Rights for Britain would have three advantages.
David lists these, but first, note well that while he advocates the replacement of Labour’s Human Rights Act he does not call for an end to its incorporation into British law, instead he wants to build on rather than repeal the legislative link to Europe.
The first advantage Davis identifies is a more sensible “balance” between rights and responsibilities; the second, that it would be more democratic because much debated; the third that and this is new: “it would strengthen not weaken the fundamental freedoms we want to protect – one option is to give a Bill of Rights constitutional force, so that it cannot be repealed on a whim”.
Blow me down if this isn’t talk about entrenchment. But why the tip-toe caution? Imagine the complications involved in trying to give such an important Bill “constitutional force” in a post-election time period when the second chamber is being reformed and Scotland, which anyway has its own legal system, is preparing for a referendum. And how do you entrench an Act without a written constitution? I have never been able to understand why the Conservatives have not had the courage to say that the unwritten, informal unitary constitution of 1688 has been undone by Labour and is no longer safe in their hands, therefore it is time to write it down, make it our own and in the process allow us to define the powers and influence of the EU within the UK.
