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Comment by ksrm | Hacker News Reader

It's times like this that I'm very glad the ECHR exists.

It is perhaps not surprising that the government wants to scrap it -- http://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/sep/30/conservitives-scr...

I was a bit vague on the European Convention on Human Rights - this article from the BBC is quite good:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/948143.stm

One particularly interesting point:

"The UK was one of the first members of the Council of Europe to ratify the Convention when it passed through Parliament in 1951."

Indeed, Chruchill seems to have been very keen on the idea - how ironic!

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009...

If UKIP had their way, we wouldn't be in the European Union or Council of Europe and would be withdrawn from the Human Rights Convention.

Yeah, but UKIP are nutters.

Nutters that are becoming increasingly popular.

Indeed. The problem Is that nutters vote nutters in.

A big chunk of the UK consists of nutters. Look at the EDL for example. I've lived places where idiots like that are worshipped.

Thoroughly depressing.

I don't think UKIP have much support here in Scotland - I suspect most people see them as the "Little Englander" party:

http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/columnists/why-ukip-ha...

Well, if the SNP had had their way you'd be in the Euro instead.

True, but sadly they are popular nutters.

Daly with UK voter turn out being so low (between 60% and 70%) it's not so hard to grab some votes, especially if you spew the kind of stuff that UKIP spew.

It'd be interesting to see some vigorous modelling with different amounts of UKIP influence to see what happens (in the fictitious model).

(http://ukpolitical.info/turnout45.htm)

Yeah, because being against a corrupt, unelected organisation that can't even get its own accounts signed off due to corruption and fraud. What a crazy position to take.

http://fullfact.org/factchecks/has_eu_budget_rejected_audito...

And a good thing too. That way prisoners wouldn't get the vote, we'd be able to deport terrorists etc etc.

I can't see any additional rights that I have that I didn't have before it became part of British law. All I see are dis-benefits.

Ok, I'll bite. What are the dis-benefits?

Which human rights do you specifically want to lose?

>That way prisoners wouldn't get the vote

Why is this a good thing? Prisoners are still citizens. Disenfranchising them only serves to further alienate them from society.

Time and again the ECHR has served as an important check on breaches of the European Convention by the UK. But a few examples:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_and_Grady_v_United_Kingdo...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saunders_v_United_Kingdom

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Bournewood_Community_and_Me...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutherland_v_United_Kingdom

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