The EU and the ECHR

From the BBC

BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson said Downing Street had rejected any suggestion that the purpose of Mr Cameron's reshuffle was "to clear the decks for an assault on the European Court of Human Rights and says no final decision has been taken on what will be in the Conservative manifesto".

Under the Conservative proposals, the UK Parliament will decide what constitutes a breach of human rights.

BBC political editor Nick Robinson said a report written by a working group of Conservative lawyers predicts the so-called British Bill of Rights could force changes in the way the Strasbourg court operates.

But it also acknowledges that it could lead to the UK being expelled from the 47-member Council of Europe, which aims to uphold human rights across the continent.

Mr Grieve had warned his colleagues that the idea was a plan for "a legal car crash with a built-in time delay", Nick Robinson said.

The former Attorney General argued that it was an "incoherent" policy to remain a signatory to the European Convention of Human Rights but to refuse to recognise the rulings of the court which enforces it.

Anyone who thinks the Strasbourg court is going to change for us is frankly talking out of their arse.

But more importantly, this ignores the reality that we won't just get expelled from the Council of Europe, but probably kicked out of the EU as the Commission has a very clear viewpoint of the ECHR and the EU.

And it looks like the reason Grieve got the boot is that he knew it was unworkable, grade A bullshit. If you tear up the ECHR, you have to leave the EU, and Cameron isn't going to want to do that, so who knows what the hell he thinks was going to happen. It's just stupid get-the-kippers-back policy making that can't be delivered.