Don’t Take Human Rights for Granted

A letter to Worcester News. Printed  26th October 2022.   Dear Editor, Human rights matter but are we not in danger of taking them for granted? It worries me that the UK government have been threatening to gut the Human Rights Act for years. Whilst plans for the Rights Removal Bill have been put on ice, the Human Rights Act remains under threat. In fact, only a short while ago Home Secretary Suella Braverman threatened to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), a human rights body of 47 European countries. If that was to happen, the UK would join Belarus which was barred from the Council of Europe in 1997 and Russia who were was expelled after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February of this year. Our Human Rights Act protects all of us. It’s an invisible safety net, working to ensure our rights are respected. It is a crucial defence for the most vulnerable.We know the Human Rights Act works. It worked for the Hillsborough families in their fight for justice. It worked for the victims of John Worboys. Protecting our human rights and freedoms is one of the main reasons that I got involved in politics in the first place. Let’s not take them for granted. Tor Pingree