Editorial: The UK should quit the European Convention on Human Rights yet Northern Ireland will not be allowed to leave it

​The Conservatives, we report on page five, have not ruled out pledging to leave the European Convention on Human Rights. The home secretary, James Cleverly, signalled as much yesterday on the election trail.

Polling is such that the Tories will need a near miracle to return as a government with the sort of majority that could get through such a seismic move. There is next to no chance Labour will take a step. But quitting the convention and the Strasboug-based court that enforces it is an essential step, yet one that will be potentially disastrous for Northern Ireland.

The convention was an important document in the aftermath of two world wars and the need to constrain potentially brutal dictatorships. Over time, however, it has become more and more of a constraint on highly civilised, restrained states such as the UK, putting them at a disadvantage against those who do not play by the rules, ranging from Putin-like tyrants to migrant-people smugglers to terrorists.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in Northern Ireland. The constant citing of Article Two has been used to justify the gross legacy investigative imbalance against the security forces. That article of the convention protects the right to life so is then mentioned whenever the state killed someone during the Troubles, which – when it happened – was overwhelmingly legal. The article was not used, or able to be used, to order investigations into the overall policy of softness towards terrorists, and respect for their rights, so that they could murder at will.

The convention has also been used to stop the UK being able to police its borders against out-of-control immigration. The problem is that when even Labour comes to bend to growing public pressure to scrap the convention, perhaps in a decade or more, NI will not be allowed to follow suit. ‘Human rights’ lawyers are working to make sure of that already.