Tuesday 2 November 2010

Cameron Capitulates Again

The only surprise is that it's taken so long, but prisoners are to get the right to vote. Cameron could have said no, the only sanction the Council of Europe could impose is our exit. An “exasperated” and “furious” Cameron is never going to fall out with any European institution if he can help it.

Of course the giving prisoners the right to vote will have precisely no impact on rehabilitation rates, it merely helps the consciousness of those who have never been burgled Lib Dems.

One beneficial outcome will be that resentment of the EU will fester even more. Though the ECHR is nothing to do with the EU, such distinctions are lost as can be seen in the comments here and here. Even the normally very sound Bloggers4UKIP has erred.

Unwittingly Cameron is bringing our exit so much closer.

4 comments:

  1. Err TBF,

    Agreed ECHR is nowt to do with the EU, however membership and acceptance of its rulings is automatic under EU memebership.

    I do have to agree with the last para though in Bloggers4UKIP! To delay the Referendum Bill has, Isuspect, been Cameron's idea all along.

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  2. But as we were a member of the CoE way before we were a member of the EU that doen't really change anything.

    The EU, or more specifically the ECJ, cannot enforce ECHR rulings on member states; that is the sole jurisdiction of the Committee of Ministers

    In practice we can ignore the ECHR if we like, the Italians have so far over the 'crucifixes in classrooms' ruling.

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  3. You're absolutely right TBF. People would do better to talk about the export of political and judicial autonomy as a whole.

    It was nauseating listening to John Hirst crowing on BBC Five Live earlier. His patronising arrogance is only slightly less annoying than the fact this killer is not still behind bars. The ECHR has got this wrong and we should never have given up jurisdiction over human rights law to this body.

    You can read February's exchange of comments between me and Hirst about votes for prisoners over on AM (follow first 'here' link in penultimate paragraph).

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  4. Thanks AM will have a read.

    I know this sounds silly (because he's a killer) but John Hirst is a deeply unpleasant person. His blog posts are awash with arrogant judgments of everyone else (he's the last person to make judgments of others).

    Despite banging on about 'uman rights, he clearly doesn't believe in the concept of innocent until proven guilty as his hounding on his blog of the McCanns show.

    He got quite upset when the Telegraph libeled him as a murderer

    http://thefrogsalittlehot.blogspot.com/2010/09/axe-killer-john-hirst-takes-offence.html

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