Tag: Kruger

Farage loses vote to leave the ECHR


Reform leader loses Commons vote

November 2025

Edited, 5 November

Last week, Nigel Farage, the leader of the Reform party, lost his Commons vote to leave the ECHR. Reform, along with many Conservatives, are pushing the idea of leaving the European Convention as means to solve the immigration crisis and in particular the Channel crossings. In a vote, 154 were against and 96 for leaving.

Farage is not alone and in the Guardian link to this story, local readers will see the East Wiltshire MP Danny Kruger sat beside him. The Salisbury MP Mr John Glen (pictured) has also joined the chorus, no doubt following his leader Kemi Badenoch, who made an abrupt U-turn on the subject at their conference in September. It appeared in the ‘View from the Commons‘ piece in the Salisbury Journal (16 October). Entitled ‘Exiting ECHR not about watering down our rights‘ it seeks to justify the U-turn by Kemi Badencoch.

‘We do not need it’ ‘Mr Glen told us claiming that Common Law is all you need because ‘we are perfectly capable of upholding our rights and freedoms‘. Why then did scores of people have to go to Strasbourg to get justice? Why did the Hillsborough families have to wait years to get their justice? And the Birmingham Six were finally exonerated when judge after judge failed in their duty? And all those who spent years in prison for crimes they didn’t commit. A list of other cases where people sought justice from Strasbourg can be found here. The Post Office scandal?

The Conservatives have hated the Human Rights Act and it’s noteworthy that both Glen and Kruger ‘generally vote against laws to protect equality and human rights’ according to They Work for You. They are happy with a legal system that largely protects the rights of the powerful and the property owners but are somewhat less concerned with the rights of the powerless even assuming they could contemplate using the law at all.

Mr Farage argues that we will not have true sovereignty until we leave the Convention, a similar argument to that put forward at the time of Brexit. The threat to our sovereignty is more likely to come from the Trump administration in the US. Trade sanctions and threats to NATO are much more serious than anything coming from Europe.

The Guardian piece above was written by Daniel Trilling who came to Salisbury to speak on immigration matters.

Image: Salisbury Radio noting that Mr Glen voted to leave the ECHR.

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Human rights under threat


Many politicians lining up to weaken rights

September 2025

We have posted over the years of this site’s existence the near constant attacks on human rights, the act itself and more recently, the European Convention (ECHR) which is generating a lot of anger at present. Many of the attacks came from news outlets who were concerned about privacy issues in the light of their various hacking* activities. The attacks have morphed in recent years with greater emphasis on the ECHR and a widespread desire among politicians to leave it. The impetus for this latest surge follows the attempt to deport immigrants to Rwanda which was stopped at the last minute by the European Court from flying from an airfield a mile or two from where this is being typed. The policy was abandoned by Labour when it came into power.

This post draws heavily on an article in the Observer (14 September) by Rachel Sylvester entitled: Misinformation and myth: the UK’s phoney war on human rights. The article begins with the well worn disinformation stories the latest being the chicken nugget debacle. Immigration, asylum seekers, hotels and the boat crossings are making the political waves at present and a wide range of politicians are seizing on the unrest to make political hay. They include Nigel Farage (Reform), Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch (Conservative). Locally, Danny Kruger MP for East Wiltshire, is a vocal opponent [Kruger switched from Conservative to Reform while this post was being written].

Chicken nuggets debacle

Chicken nuggets? The story was that an Albanian criminal could not be deported because his son disliked eating chicken nuggets. There was no such ruling. A senior judge made it abundantly clear that an aversion to chicken nuggets could never be enough to avoid deportation. The false story was latched onto by the politicians mentioned above. Since two are members of their political parties and one wants to become one, it is disappointing to observe that they keen to perpetuate myths.

The fury over the boat crossings has led to many politicians wanting to leave the ECHR despite the fact, the article notes, Strasbourg has only ruled against the UK three times in 45 years. In all the invective against the ECHR, its positive effects are seldom reported: Hillsborough being a prime example [Correction: 20 September. It was the HRA which was significant with this inquiry]. But in areas of the country where immigration is a particular problem, leaving the ECHR is a ‘test of ideological purity’ (ibid). It is also part of the Brexit story since many believed that when we left the EU we would leave the European Court as well.

Few friends

The court seems to have few friends however. Politicians who should know better, such as Richard Hermer the Attorney General, are talking in terms of ‘reform’. Reform might be all right but when reform = weaken it’s not all right. There seems to be a lack of stout defence of the act by politicians. Such is the ascendancy of Nigel Farage that it appears politicians of all stripes are desperate to ape his remarks or even try and outdo him. The Human Rights Act has made a significant difference to people’s lives in way many may not be aware of. It would be a huge loss to the country if as a result of hysteria over immigration, we were to lose some important rights.

*There is an ITV drama on this to air shortly.

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Supreme Court decision – Rwanda


Supreme Court declares government’s Rwanda plan ‘unlawful’

November 2023

This morning, 15 November, the Supreme Court in the UK gave its unanimous decision on the government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, declaring it unlawful. This puts a flagship policy in jeopardy and it is not clear what will happen next. Huge political capital has been vested in this decision and it had massive, if totemic, significance for the government. One of its motivations was that it would act as a deterrent to the huge numbers crossing the Channel in small boats, something it was never likely to do.

The first flight was planned in June this year and it was due to take off from Boscombe Down airfield (pictured) in Wiltshire just a mile or so from where this post is being written. At the last moment, the European Court ruled it unlawful and the aircraft took off empty the following day.

The court’s decision was based on the human rights situation in Rwanda. The key principle is refoulement: that someone should not be sent back to their country of origin if there is a risk of mistreatment. The situation in Rwanda is poor with extrajudicial killings, use of torture and enforced disappearances a regular feature. The court also took into account that individuals from Yemen, Syria and Afghanistan have all been returned to their home country where they will be at severe risk of mistreatment or death. Other individuals have been clandestinely moved out of the country.

This decision and the whole vexed story of immigration, refugees, the boat crossings, use of hotels and related issues is extremely high profile in the UK. Considerable anger is expressed by many on the subject and it is a regular source of hostile front pages of the tabloid press and outlets such as GB News. It is said to be as a result of the public’s anger on the subject but this is not altogether true. Many it is true, are angry and want the government to deport the boat people forthwith. Other views are more nuanced. It is not always clear whether the ceaseless headlines on the subject and the somewhat one-sided treatment is itself stimulating the public to its hostile attitudes.

This decision, and the previous one to halt the flight in June, will add to those in the Conservative party who have been seeking our departure from the European Convention. This was a threat expressed by the previous Home Secretary who lost her post on Monday. However, the court made clear that it wasn’t just the European Convention that was the key law in this regard. They pointed out there were other aspects of law, as well as international treaties which the UK has signed, all of which had a bearing on the question of refoulement. This has not prevented – in the words of Open Democracy – the ‘marginally less deranged’ members of parliament who are calling for us to abandon all international covenants. One such is Danny Kruger the member for Devizes in Wiltshire, another is the deputy chair of the party Lee Anderson.

It is important to recognise that the court ruled that the policy of deporting asylum seekers is not unlawful. What was at issue was the human rights in Rwanda itself. So the policy lives on and the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said in the Commons today that he was willing to “revisit domestic legal frameworks” in their desire to pursue this policy. This might mean the Human Rights Act (one of the acts the high court referred to) comes under attack again, a long time goal of the Conservative Party.

Such is the level of political capital involved in this issue and its place in the Prime Minister’s five priorities that they cannot allow it to go away quietly. We will have to see what emerges in the coming days and weeks. If the decision to remove ourselves from the aegis of the European Court, that will be a retrograde step. We will have to leave the Council of Europe, it will weaken our voice internationally and will hinder our efforts at improving the rule of law around the world.

Photo: Boscombe Down. Salisbury Amnesty

UPDATE: Prime Minister announces they will conclude a new treaty with Rwanda which will override the Supreme Court decision (which he does not agree with) and will enable refugees to be sent there.

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Curious insight into Conservative view of the Human Rights Act


Devizes MP Danny Kruger has written a chapter in a book by the Common Sense group

May 2021

In recent years some members of the Conservative party seem to have a problem with the Human Rights Act and some would like to see it abolished.  Far right newspapers typify the act as being a means by which terrorists, murderers and others escape justice because the act provides lawyers with a range of loopholes to get their clients off. They call it a ‘criminal’s charter’.  Many of the stories, on closer examination, turn out not to be true or wanton exaggerations. 

The current corpus of human rights law started life after the Second World War and there were a number of Conservative politicians who were active proponents, including Sir Winston Churchill and David Maxwell-Fyfe. 

Since 2015, the tone has changed and in the manifesto of that year, David Cameron promised to scrap the act.  Little happened and by the time of the 2019 manifesto, ‘scrap’ had gone and a review was promised.  What is to be reviewed and how a new act would look and what it would contain has never been clear.  At the time, the Salisbury group raised the matter with our MP Mr John Glen, but we were not much clearer what they wanted it replaced by. The review of the act is currently underway.

A new book has just been produced by a group of backbench Conservatives called Common Sense: Conservative Thinking For a Post-Liberal Age. In it, is a chapter written by the Devizes* MP Danny Kruger entitled Restoring rights: Reclaiming Liberty. 

His chapter contains odd reasoning and some curious logic.  His first claim is that the European Convention on Human Rights, drafted by British Lawyers after World War II [lawyers from other countries were involved so it is incorrect to say ‘British lawyers’] ‘sits uncomfortably with the English tradition of preventing tyranny’.  This will come as something of a surprise to the millions of people who were enslaved and were worked to death in the sugar plantations or those who worked in fearful conditions in nineteenth century factories.  The acquisition of Empire also has many horror stories. Quite where this ‘prevention of tyranny’ was taking place is not made clear.

Human rights are misnamed he claims. ‘The rights we really need, and the only ones we really have, derive from something higher and something lower than mankind.  They derive from the idea of God, and from the fact of nations: from a Christian conception of law …’  It would be difficult to locate in the Bible many of the principles enshrined in the ECHR or HRA if only because these ideas and principles were a long way from a society colonised by the Romans and where practices like slavery were common.  There are many favourable references to slavery in the Bible for example.  The ‘lower than mankind’ element is not explained.

He quotes approvingly of the American author Patrick Deneen who wrote Why Liberalism Failed (2018).  Many do not agree with Kruger’s admiration of Deneen’s book regarding his blame of a huge range of society’s ills on excessive liberalism to be odd not to say ridiculous.

His analysis seems to go seriously awry however with the following passage:

“And so, from an early stage we came to think of rights as the means by which we are set free from external pressure, set free from obligations to others; and from there it is a small step to the hypocritical assumption that rights confer obligations on others to satisfy us” (p49).

It is incorrect to say that requiring the state to act in a lawful and reasonable way towards its subjects is in anyway hypocritical.  What is hypocritical about requiring the State not to torture us? What is hypocritical about having a fair trial?  Nor is it true to argue that rights set us free from external pressure.  This seems to go to the heart of the objections raised by some Conservatives about the HRA, and the attempts to weave in duties.  The argument seems to be you only deserve these rights in limited circumstances and in a conditional way. 

This argument is further developed in this passage:

“This conception of rights must be rooted in the existence of a community – a real community, not the abstraction of ‘humankind’.  A real community entails reciprocal duties, situated in institutions that can enforce them and mediated by the conventions of people who know each other and share a common culture.  This is the nation.  We derive our rights from our citizenship (or more properly, our subjectship)”. p52 (our italics)

The problem all along with the objections to the HRA is trying to tie them down to specifics.  In an earlier Conservative document Protecting Human Rights in the UK, the examples seem to be stuck on deporting foreign criminals as an example of obligations. 

The Human Rights Act, brought in following cross party consensus – and falsely characterised as ‘Labour’s Human Rights Act’ – represented a significant shift in power.  Ever since the Norman conquest, power rested with the elites: the king, the barons and gradually the landowners and aristocracy.  Concessions were drawn from them as a result of unrest, riots or events such as the Peterloo massacre.  Magna Carta sought to restore some of the rights enjoyed during Saxon times.  The ‘Glorious Revolution’ brought further changes.  The Great Reform Act some more.

We were subjects not citizens.  The HRA changed that and gave citizens a range of fundamental rights (some of which are conditional).  It would appear that for a small number of Conservative backbenchers in the Common Sense group this is troubling.  Yet Mr Kruger’s chapter never gives solid reasons for change, only rather nebulous arguments which crumble away on close reading. 

*Devizes is a small town 25 miles north of Salisbury.

kruger chapter extractDownload
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