Playing to the right

“UNWORKABLE”, “contradictory” and “incoherent”. Those were among the epithets that have greeted the Conservative Party’s plans to reform Britain’s human-rights laws. The Tories have long wanted to scrap the Human Rights Act (HRA), passed in 1998 by a Labour government. On October 3rd Chris Grayling, the justice secretary, promised to do just that as the Tories gear up for a May election in which the Eurosceptic UK Independence Party (UKIP) threatens to lure away voters. In fact, the reforms will change less than supporters hope or critics fear.

The HRA incorporated into British law the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which Britain signed (and helped to draft) more than half a century ago. The act allowed Britons to pursue human-rights violations in British courts, rather than going to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Although demonised by the Tories as European interventionism, the HRA actually made it more likely that human-rights cases would be heard in domestic courts, albeit in the light of internationally agreed principles.