Nigel Farage says he wants the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in order to ‘solve the small boats crisis’. However, it's not just the rights of refugees that the convention protects - it protects the rights of every single British citizen from state oppression, too. Leaving the ECHR would ultimately give any UK government near-dictatorial power to impose all manner of horrific laws on British citizens too. And don't for one moment think it couldn't happen here. Just look at what is happening across the Atlantic with Trump and his acolytes. Farage is using the Trump Playbook under the name of the Reform Party.
Of all European countries, only Russia and Belarus are not signatories to the convention - with both countries implementing policies that blatantly contravene numerous sections of the ECHR, including widespread political repression, criminalising protest, the use of torture, unfair trials, and all manner of deeply disturbing human rights breaches.
Should he win the next election - as the polls are currently predicting - Nigel Farage says the very first thing he wants to do is leave the European Convention of Human Rights.
Below are just a few examples of what any UK government, free from the shackles of the ECHR, could potentially get away with:
Freedom of speech
Without
the ECHR, any UK government could simply:
-
Criminalise dissent
-
Ban critical media
-
Censor the internet
And
if you speak out against it, you could be silenced.
Protest rights
Marching
in the streets? Banned.
Organising
against the government? Criminalised.
Critics
of the government could simply be locked up without trial under new “public
order” or “national security” laws.
Detention without trial
Indefinite
imprisonment without charge could return.
Police
powers could be legally made so broad that anyone labelled a “national security
threat” could simply disappear into custody.
Privacy destroyed
Mass
surveillance could become law.
Every
call, every message, every online search - monitored by the government for
dissent.
Encryption?
Outlawed.
VPNs?
Banned.
Your
right to a private life - compromised.
All
to protect the power of those at the top.
Discrimination legalised
LGBT
people, disabled people, religious groups and other minorities - all could be
targeted openly.
With
the ECHR gone, there’d be no legal backstop to stop laws built on prejudice.
Fair trials gutted
Without
the ECHR, any future UK government could totally abolish the right to a fair
trial and implement:
-
Secret courts
-
A ban on juries
-
Evidence from torture or illegal spying allowed
Your
legal rights could be totally stripped away - at the drop of a hat.
These examples are only the start
Leaving
the ECHR would give the government free rein to do almost anything - such
as:
-
Stripping citizenship from British citizens
-
Deporting dissenters
- Banning political opponents
The
ECHR doesn’t just protect asylum seekers. It
protects each and every one of us from authoritarian rule and political
violence. Once
it’s gone, it’s gone forever. It’d
mean a government with total power to do literally anything they want. Not just
to other people. But to YOU, as well.
So
- how much should we REALLY trust Nigel Farage? About as much as we should trust Donald Trump.
