Chuka, Helena Kennedy, Vince Cable MP and others take issue with the Conservatives’ record on liberty
Chuka, Baroness Helena Kennedy, Liberal Democrat MPÂ Â Vince Cable, and others who spoke at last week’s Convention on Modern Liberty take issue with Conservative speakers at the event in today’s Observer newspaper.
In their letter today, which can be read in full here, Chuka, Kennedy, Cable and others say:
“The Convention on Modern Liberty last weekend that we attended and addressed was right to identify the threat to our civil liberties represented by the current levels of surveillance and collection of personal data, and we welcome the support of Conservative MPs Dominic Grieve and David Davis (“Liberty groups unite to defend UK rights”, News, last week).
However, the threat to civil liberties goes far wider than these issues. The litmus test of a commitment to fundamental and universal human rights is whether we are prepared to support their application beyond the chattering classes – to gay couples, drug addicts and even terror suspects.
The voting record of the Conservatives on these issues is even worse than that of the government they attack. The Tories are committed to repeal of the Human Rights Act, which allows our European Convention rights to be protected by the British courts. So at the same time as attacking the government on torture, they want to prevent UK courts from applying prior judgments of the European Court of Human Rights.”
You can watch Helena Kennedy, the Labour peer and leading human rights lawyer below:
