In the latest series of Blue Lights, the BBC drama about police officers in Belfast, there’s a scene where a constable insists on staying with a mentally ill man until a nurse arrives. “This is an article two issue,” the officer tells his colleague – by which he means that under article two of the European convention on human rights (ECHR), incorporated into UK law by the 1998 Human Rights Act, the state has a duty to protect life. It is an uncontroversial example of how the ECHR, which turns 75 this week, has found its way into everyday life across the UK.
In Westminster, withdrawal from the ECHR has become a new rallying cry for the right, which claims it is the solution to unauthorised migration. In early October, Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives said they want to take the UK out of the convention if they win the next election. Last week, MPs voted down a largely symbolic proposal by Reform’s Nigel Farage to do the same. The right’s hope is that it will become a wedge issue similar to Brexit. “We are not sovereign all the while we are part of the European convention on human rights,” Farage claimed.
