Dominic Raab has gone, but the evil ideas he propagated live on after him. The latest Conservative proposal to give ministers the power to disregard any interim judgments of the European court of human rights is a culmination of the assault he has led on human rights for years. And it is indeed ironic that the minister who has done most to undermine human rights in recent years leaves office complaining bitterly that his own have not been properly recognised.
Britain will never be quite like the Israel sought by Benjamin Netanyahu, who wants to make the judiciary hostage to the government of the day. Nor are we the US of recent times, where supreme court judges are too often chosen on party political lines. Instead, the UK is famed across the world for its independent judiciary and for championing the rule of law, not least because of our involvement in the authorship of the European convention on human rights (ECHR), which came into force almost 70 years ago, on 3 September 1953, and was lauded as defining what we stand for as a country by every prime minister from Winston Churchill on – except for the past five.
