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http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/272240/Outcry-at-Lib-Dem-vow-to-save-hated-human-rights-laws

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OUTCRY AT LIB DEM VOW TO SAVE HATED HUMAN RIGHTS LAWS

Ashdown predicted Tories will back down over a British Bill of Rights

Monday September 19,2011

By Macer Hall Political Editor

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SENIOR Lib Dems provoked a furious coalition row last night by threatening to wreck David Cameron’s plan for overhauling European human rights laws.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and former party leader Lord Ashdown rubbished the Tory drive to cut meddling by the European Court of Human Rights.

In attacks from the Lib Dem conference in Birmingham, they promised to block any attempt to dilute the influence of Strasbourg-based judges in British affairs.

But Tory MPs last night warned that Lib Dem intransigence over Europe could shatter the Coalition.

Peter Bone, Conservative MP for Wellingborough, said: “This is the sort of thing that could lead to the break-up of the Coalition. Conservative MPs are convinced that the Human Rights Act has gone too far and want it replaced.”

He pointed out that the Government had set up a commission into the workings of human rights legislation and the possibility of drawing up a separate British Bill of Rights.


This is the sort of thing that could lead to the break-up of the Coalition


Peter Bone, Conservative MP for Wellingborough

And he added: “I don’t see how, before this commission has even reported, that the Liberals can say they are going to block it.”

Meanwhile, research by Tory peer Lord Ashcroft found that only 12 per cent of voters want Mr Clegg to be PM compared to 54 per cent for Mr Cameron and 34 per cent for Labour’s Ed Miliband.

In a BBC interview at the conference yesterday, Mr Clegg urged the Coalition to “stop kind of all these distractions about some legalistic argument about the Human Rights Act”.

The Deputy Prime Minister also rubbished suggestions from the Tories that European human rights legislation had undermined the criminal justice system.

“Any rational person looking at the people who’ve gone through the court system after the riots would say that the big problem is not the Human Rights Act. It has nothing to do with the Human Rights Act,” he said.

Mr Clegg savaged the growing campaign at Westminster for Britain to distance itself from the EU.

He said: “Europe influences us whether you like the EU or not.

“It has a massive effect on our everyday life and I want us to have if you like the kind of bulldog confidence of the British spirit to say instead of constantly looking for excuses to get out of the game, get in there, shape it, influence it and do so in the national interest.”

And Lord Ashdown said: “I worked very hard to get the incorporation of the Bill of Rights brought into this country and I would be absolutely dead opposed to weakening it or getting rid of it.”

He asked: “How on earth can we go in to places like Libya and elsewhere talking about preservation of human rights and then throw away one of the primary bastions that provide every European citizen with the equivalent rights in whatever country you’re in?”

And the peer predicted that the Tories will back down in their attempt to introduce a British Bill of Rights to replace the European legislation. He claimed Mr Cameron would not go “to the wall” because the law can only be changed “on the basis of a coalition”.

Earlier this year, the Prime Minister launched an inquiry to look into the possibility of establishing a British Bill of Rights.

The move followed widespread fury about a series of controversial rulings by Strasbourg judges, including ordering Britain to give serving prisoners the right to vote in Westminster and European Parliament elections.