Why We Can’t Let Theresa May Rip Up the Human Rights Act

During her catastrophic election campaign, in a speech talking about tackling terrorism and extremism, Theresa May pledged, ‘If our human rights laws stop us from doing it, we will change the laws so we can do it.’ Here, she was suggesting that Human Rights are a threat to our national security; that somehow the Human Rights Act helps to protect terrorists and puts ordinary citizens at risk. This could not be further from the truth. Firstly, the rights that Theresa May is claiming protect terrorists are the right to a fair trial and the right not to be tortured. Removing these allows the government to spend less on the police or security services because they don’t have to go through the ‘hassle’ of making sure they’ve got the right person. It allows them to act without any accountability, saving money and putting ordinary citizens, like you and me, at risk.

So what is the Human Rights Act?

The Human Rights Act (HRA) is a law that makes the rights that were set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights a legal entitlement for all. It is an incredibly powerful tool, which allows us to protest peacefully, keeps families together and ensures vulnerable people get the care that they need. Crucially, the HRA allows democracy to function, exposes institutional cover-ups and holds our government and the authorities to account for the decisions they make.

On 15 April 1989, ninety-six men, women and children were killed during a crush at Hillsborough football ground. During the first inquest the Hillsborough Disaster was ruled as accidental death, with the courts blaming it on Liverpool fans and the media calling them ‘drunken hooligans’. Twenty-five years later, in 2014, a second inquest was held. The HRA which protects people’s right to life was used to bring to light the mistakes made by police, stadium managers and paramedics. It proved that the fans were not to blame for the disaster and forced the jury to look at them as individual people, rather than a statistic.*

The current government have been trying to remove and restrict our rights for a number of years. The Investigatory Powers Act, passed last year allows the government and 48 different agencies including the British Transport Police, the NHS and HMRC access to the most intrusive mass surveillance measures in the West. This bill requires all internet service providers to keep one year of records about the websites we visit, the apps we’re using (including communications apps like WhatsApp, Facebook and Snapchat) and even records of any backups we might do with services like iCloud and Google Drive. It also gives them the powers to hack our phones and computers if they want to. This is, of course, an abuse of our rights to privacy and freedom of speech and is incredibly worrying when you take into consideration that two-thirds of London councils have suffered data breaches in the last four years, and, in the last five years, the police have had more than 2,300.

Removing the HRA will allow the government to continue to put saving money ahead of our safety. The Grenfell Tower fire, which killed at least 80 people, could have been avoided if the local council had listened to residents claims that the building was unsafe. The HRA will ensure that the public inquiry takes into account the rights of residents, including their right to life and right to a safe place to live.

We cannot let this continue. We live in a democracy, our politicians work for us, so if enough of us take a stand, they have to listen. So write to your MP, sign a petition and tell Theresa May that your freedom isn’t hers to give away.

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*For more information this case and others relating to the Human Rights Act, head to savetheact.uk.