Belfast Agreement report shows the UK 'can and should' quit ECHR 'as one' nation - Allister
A report by the Policy Exchange think tank is confirmation that the UK can quit a European human rights treaty without breaching the terms of the Belfast Agreement, Jim Allister has said.
The TUV leader says that the paper confirms his assessment that the 1998 deal does not bind either the British or Irish governments to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
The UK’s membership of the post-war accord has been under renewed political scrutiny after the Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said that leaving it is essential to his plans to deport migrants arriving illegally on small boats.
The Policy Exchange document, released at the weekend, says it has dismantled the “groundless claim that the Belfast Agreement forecloses this course of action”.
Responding to the report, Jim Allister KC MP said: “I welcome the publication of this important Policy Exchange report. Its careful and detailed analysis confirms what I have argued: that the UK, including Northern Ireland, can withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights without breaching the Belfast Agreement.
“The report rightly observes that: ‘The British-Irish Agreement does not refer to the ECHR and none of its terms suggest in any way that either the UK or Ireland, or both of them, were undertaking to remain member states of the ECHR in perpetuity.’
“It goes on to show that the references to the ECHR in the Agreement relate exclusively to the domestic law of Northern Ireland and the lawful limits on devolved powers, and not to international obligations or the individual right of petition to the Strasbourg Court.
“As the report notes: ‘British or Irish withdrawal from the ECHR would in no way undercut, breach or cut across the Multi-Party Agreement.’
“The authors also demonstrate that neither the Windsor Framework nor the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement constrain the UK from exercising its right to withdraw from the ECHR: ‘Whatever the merits of UK withdrawal from the ECHR, nothing in the Belfast Agreement rules it out as a viable course of action”
The North Antrim MP said the report “forms part of a growing body of legal analysis” showing that the UK “can and should” withdraw from the ECHR “as one”.