European Movement Vice-President Dominic Grieve KC has said the idea of the UK leaving the ECHR is “a foolish and dangerous fantasy.”
In an article on why politicians are avoiding talking about UK-EU relations during the run-up to the General Election, which is copied in full below, the former Attorney General said:
“There is nothing to suggest any good reason why the Conservatives should be able to revive and grow the economy strongly if they were to win the election and they are certainly not about to admit that they might have got Brexit wrong. Instead, they look as if they are about to double down and threaten leaving the European Convention on Human Rights. The proposal is a foolish and dangerous fantasy. Not only will it not facilitate deporting anyone to Rwanda, but leaving is incompatible with the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement and with the continuance of our Trade and Co-operation Agreement with the EU. Precipitating yet further economic damage is an odd way of making Brexit work.”
“As the Conservatives have embraced Brexit and claim it can be made to work, we might therefore expect to hear of how it is now benefitting us, even if in the short term it might have been disruptive. But the silence is total. We have hardly any genuinely new trade deals and the one we do have with Australia has been described as not being in our national interest by the deputy Prime Minister, and called ‘not actually a very good deal’ by George Eustice, the UK’s former environment secretary.”
Conservative manifesto launch
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has repeatedly addressed the UK’s relationship with the ECHR, most recently in his manifesto launch speech, by saying, “if I’m forced to choose between securing our borders and our country’s security or a foreign court, I’m going to choose our country’s security every single time.”
New polling
The comments come after new polling by European Movement UK last week showed 65% of people aged 25-34 saw Europe as a key topic over the next five weeks. The overall figure for the under-40s was 62%. Even in the 65-74 age bracket, well over half wanted discussion of our relationship with the EU back on the table.
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