back to article Remain in the EU and help me snoop on the world, says Theresa May

Brexit would harm the UK's snooping apparatus, Home Secretary Theresa May argued in a speech today, suggesting we probably ought to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) instead. Speaking at the Institute of Mechanical Engineers this morning, the snooping-obsessed Home Secretary presented the many surveillance …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Take anything Theresa May says with a Salt Mine.

    1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

      Salt mine will not be enough

      There is one minor problem with her idea.

      ECHR membership is an Eu membership condition. Out of ECHR and European Human Right convention automatically invokes the "rule of law" procedures. No nation has gone down this road before so the I would not wager on the result. The "rule of law" was invoked on Poland for the first time ever and we are yet to see what the result will be.

      IMHO an Eu member suspending the ECHR convention will end up with an ejection from the Eu.

      So she might as well join Gove and openly proclaim her intentions instead of trying to get them through the backdoor.

      1. wolfetone Silver badge
        Mushroom

        Re: Salt mine will not be enough

        A land mine would be better.

      2. Anonymous Curd

        Re: Salt mine will not be enough

        It's also a condition of the Good Friday Agreement. Untangling that mess would make Brexit look like a summer's evening stroll.

        1. Teiwaz

          Re: Salt mine will not be enough

          "It's also a condition of the Good Friday Agreement. Untangling that mess would make Brexit look like a summer's evening stroll."

          Getting those clowns in Stormont to agree on anything, even something as apparently non-partisan politic as welfare reform nearly broke the executive. The Good Friday Agreement was brokered by the centre parties.

          I'd feel happier if May buggered off to the leave camp with 'most' of the other loonies. Leave the 'ECHR' - does she think the EU is a golf club that she can decide to opt out of ECHR like it's an optional gym membership?

          Clearly she hasn't a clue.

          1. Yes Me Silver badge
            Facepalm

            Re: Salt mine will not be enough

            "Clearly she hasn't a clue."

            I think we knew that.

  2. Rich 11

    suggesting we probably ought to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) instead.

    Isn't that tantamount to expelling ourselves from the EU, since being a signatory to the ECHR is a pre-condition of membership?

    I reckon she's trying to have her cake and eat it. If the referendum goes against him and Cameron gets the traditional knife in the back, she'll be able to tell BoJo just how much she secretly supported him from the inside.

    1. g e

      ECHR

      Tessie May personally opted out of the ECHR a long time ago, methinks. The 'HR' part, certainly.

      Crazy hag.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What does it say about a country that wants to leave EHCR?

    I'm sure it is not 'ideal' but to actually have the aim of removing that protection from your own citizens?

    As the article says, framed by someone involved in the Nuremburg trials, who presumably knows a bit about what Human Rights abuse really means.

    And we're supposed to vote for this (not in the current referendum, obviously, but in the broader sense of what the party wants to stand for)?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What does it say about a country that wants to leave EHCR?

      > but to actually have the aim of removing that protection from your own citizens?

      I guess the official line is to remove that protection from other country's citizens (e.g. so that you can expel foreigners who have broken your laws)

      Anyway, it's just a piece of paper. The government is going to spy on its citizens anyway, whether or not there is a "right to a private life".

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: What does it say about a country that wants to leave EHCR?

        It's not a country that wants to leave the EHCR, it's Teresa May. It's important to make that clear. Frankly, the rest of us quite like having Human Rights.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What does it say about a country that wants to leave EHCR?

      I'm sure it is not 'ideal' but to actually have the aim of removing that protection from your own citizens?

      I must say that we seemed to have one of the world's best justice systems and top tier civil liberties long before EHCR. The way some people are prattling on, I could conclude they think that the European courts are the only thing between them and breaking rocks in a Scottish gulag.

      1. Dave Bell

        Re: What does it say about a country that wants to leave ECHR?

        There's some truth to that. We wrote the thing.

        But, even if we can stay in the EU without being in the Council of Europe, the EU legal system still takes the ECHR into account.

        What does it say about a Home Secretary's respect for law that she doesn't know that?

  4. Afernie
    Facepalm

    She seems blissfully unaware...

    ...or chooses to wilfully ignore that the ECHR is inextricably written into the EU treaties. I suspect the latter. Either way, she can no more choose to abolish the ECHR in the UK while remaining in the EU than I can fly by flapping my arms.

    1. John Bailey

      Re: She seems blissfully unaware...

      But isn't she the one who claimed someone was given leave to stay when they claimed their cat as a dependent?

      Call me cynical, but I really think expecting any reality based discourse is a wee bit of an unrealistic expectation.

      1. Afernie

        Re: She seems blissfully unaware...

        A yes, I remember that one: "We all know the stories... about the illegal immigrant who cannot be deported because, and I am not making this up, he had a pet cat."

        Yes you were making it up, Theresa. From whole f***ing cloth.

  5. kryptonaut

    One of the benefits of the EU is that its regulations help to keep in check the wilder excesses of the government of the day. So I'm not surprised that she wants to try to cut those reins so she can have her wicked way with us all.

    It irritates me immensely that voting to remain in the EU would be siding with May, though.

    1. Roger Kynaston
      Joke

      Re: Kryptonaut

      Theresa May most definitely *Cannot* have her wicked way with me!

      1. g e

        Re: Kryptonaut

        She's welcome to try but only because that means she'll have to get close enough to me so that I can punch her repeatedly in the face.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Kryptonaut

          "She's welcome to try but only because that means she'll have to get close enough to me so that I can punch her repeatedly in the face."

          You can only do that if it's consensual and you have a safe word. Do it right and you won't even be reported in the right wing press.

    2. codejunky Silver badge

      @ kryptonaut

      "One of the benefits of the EU is that its regulations help to keep in check the wilder excesses of the government of the day."

      Now isnt that terrifying. We voted in our own country and this person is in a position of power. Come the next election there is the freedom to vote them out. Now remember that we are only 1 little voice in the EU who couldnt get much by way of concessions by threatening to leave. And that the EU is currently going through a number of extreme swings in local politics (lots of anti EU in various EU countries). Imagine how the EU could elect (not the people remember) horrible people we would never want in charge.

      Now recall that the EU want to build an army. Note that the EU cannot actually survive as it is and will need serious reform (the longer it waits the more harm it causes to its members) including a fuzzy term known as 'ever closer union'. Be aware of the twin engine failing (France screwed up) and now it is German run causing unrest as the EU cannot be run as Germany is.

      Forget who you are siding with depending on your decision, there are no winners that way. Instead imagine these horrible people being elected out. Now imagine them in charge of the EU and having no freedom to elect them out.

      Whatever the worst you can imagine of politics now can be elected to run the EU. Blair was aiming to be the president of it! Can you imagine that? And no power to get rid of him.

      *I think May is reigned in by the ECHR not the EU btw. As per the article. And so she wants to stay in the EU but get out of the ECHR which we could leave the EU but keep the court if we wanted. So your vote about the EU has nothing to do with stopping her.

  6. 8Ace

    ECHR is also part of the N.Ireland Peace agreement

    Writing ECHR into UK law was a condition of the N.Ireland peace agreement, which itself is underwritten both by an Internationally binding treaty with the Irish Republic and more importantly by a large majority in a referendum in N.Ireland itself.

    Unpick that

    1. Voland's right hand Silver badge
      Mushroom

      Re: ECHR is also part of the N.Ireland Peace agreement

      Unpick that.

      That is easy. BOOM. Now the, BOOM, consequences, BOOM, are another, BOOM, matter. BOOM.

      1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

        Re: ECHR is also part of the N.Ireland Peace agreement

        Replying to myself in order to keep the joke and the serious argument separate.

        On a more serious note, her (and the other lunatics) issue with the ECHR and HR convention is that it has primacy over UK law. She and the out "lunatics" are spellbound by the idea that "Parliament is Sovereign and shall not be bound".

        What you just tried to explain and give for a reason is an international treaty which is a binding obligation which binds the Parliament. As far as her (and Gove, Boris, etc) logic applies any international treaties and any international obligations ratified by UK might as well have been printed on the toilet paper they used this morning. Parliament is sovereign and shall not be bound. Wipe arse with the treaty and who cares about the BOOM afterwards. Worked fine for centuries, should work fine now, right?

        Well, not really. We live in a different day and age. Once you take on an international obligation, you stick to it as untangling yourself from one is not as easy as for our ancestors. We no longer fight a major war every 20 years which wipes all treaties clean slate so they are now around for decades and get built over and intertwined. For example - all Eu treaties build on top of ECHR.

        So frankly, the next person starting the "sovereign and..." should stuff it. This includes her grace, the future High Chancellor Teresa May.

        1. Chris Miller

          Re: ECHR is also part of the N.Ireland Peace agreement

          There's a world of difference between entering into a treaty, which like any legal contract (hopefully) clearly states what your obligations will be and the conditions under which they can be demanded of you, and binding your courts to a third party entity whose word is absolute and can demand anything they like whenever they like.

          I've no problem with implementing the wording of some set of human rights conventions into English law and letting our judges interpret them, I'm very concerned about transferring such powers to an unrepresentative body over whom we have no democratic control.

          1. Warm Braw

            Re: ECHR is also part of the N.Ireland Peace agreement

            >I've no problem with implementing the wording of some set of human rights conventions into English law and letting our judges interpret them,

            There is one big problem with this: the UK has no constitution and no hurdles to prevent a government with a simple majority from overturning such safeguards as its citizens presently enjoy, even to the point of postponing elections or abandoning democracy. Even if we did have a constitution that required a larger majority to amend its terms, if we depended entirely on our own judges to interpret it we would also be dependent on those judges being entirely independent and not subject to behind-the-scene pressure or influence. The whole point about the ECHR is that it is not subject to the political whims and convenience of a single political party in a single country. And that is a deliberate choice based on the experience of large swathes of Europe in the 1930s and the Soviet occupation of most of Eastern Europe from the 1940s.

            If we ditched the ECHR, our laws would largely be dictated by the Daily Mail and our periodic electoral choice between tweedle-dumb and tweedle-dumber would make even less impact on public policy than now. Be very afraid of politicians who demand "supremacy".

          2. Voland's right hand Silver badge

            Re: ECHR is also part of the N.Ireland Peace agreement

            transferring such powers to an unrepresentative body over whom we have no democratic control.

            Can you stop repeating this Gove, Treasonous May and Co bulshit. Part of the ECHR convention is that the judges are democratically elected and represent the countries which participate. So let's go through your regurgitation of High Chancellor May and the Spider (dunno Gove or Boris) drivel:

            First. UNREPRESENTATIVE MY ARSE. It represents all participating countries. Adding a country to the council of Europe requires agreement of all others and it gets a judge. This includes UK. UK has agreed to every single expansion of representation since 1949. Every single time. In fact, it was instrumental to several expansions of the council.

            Second. The election of the individual judges is done at the Parliamentary council of Europe which are surprise, surprise appointed by the parliaments who are participants to the convention. So they are democratically elected including by the UK, albeit indirectly. Full list is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_judges_of_the_European_Court_of_Human_Rights

            Third. The conditions are part of the convention. UK is a founding signatory to the convention and it drafted that "contract". In fact, it was Winston Churchill's idea in the first place. If the UK did not want the ECHR to have power over its courts it should not have drafted the f*** "contract" this way in the first place. So the conditions "under which it is demanded" are written by UK legal and politicians in the first place. They are no more and no less and they are something UK wrote initially and agreed to. Do not like - go demonstrate in front of Winston's monument in London. That is the right place to do that by the way. Do you dare?

            Fourth. The only country which has a problem with having the rest of Europe verify that it is not descending into "Strength through Unity. Unity through Faith" is Belarus. This summarizes where our future High Chancellor(ess) stands. No need to say more.

            1. Chris Miller

              @Voland

              I fear your medication in in need of adjustment. Continual swearing just makes you sound very childish, as does RANDOM capitalisation - which is perhaps your intent.

              Do you still think that submitting to the ECHR is just like signing an international treaty? You may want your laws decided by failed lawyers and third rate academics appointed on some Buggins' turn system from who knows where, but I prefer to have elected representatives, who I can vote to remove if I'm not satisfied with them. Is that too difficult to understand?

              1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

                Re: @Voland

                Do you still think that submitting to the ECHR is just like signing an international treaty?

                ECHR scope, authority and submission to it are a part of an international treaty.

                It is a treaty Britain invented (Winston Churchill, 1943), drafted (post-war 1949-1950, too lazy to dig out the actual names of foreign office and law dignitaries which did it), signed as a founding country (1950) and has kept signing every amendment (14 protocols or thereabouts) ever since.

                If anyone needs meds this is the anti-ECHR brigade. Whatever is given to people having constant delusions and living in la-la land.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: ECHR is also part of the N.Ireland Peace agreement

          "Gove, Boris"

          Johnson is a right wing journalist who derives quite a lot of his income from the right wing press. Gove's wife is a right wing journalist who derives much of her income from the right wing press.

          I regard both of them as about as rational and reliable as Paul Foot would have been had he made it into government. The difference, of course, and based on who has most of the money, is that there was never the slightest chance of that happening.

      2. This post has been deleted by its author

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Checks such as these mean we have been able to deport more than 3,000 European nationals who posed a threat to the public.

    Now call me silly but would it not be better to check people on the way in?

    Furthermore who has actually asked that we get out the ECHR? I didn't and I don't think many would, that is unless they were fooled by the press about a certain one handed preacher.

    Personal opinion, the vote will be out (after Obama's comments I think nothing gets people wound up more than hypocritical statements of do as I say not as I do) which will be a nice excuse for the next financial breakdown where more money is passed over the wealthy while everyone else gets screwed. I'll be voting in because in my opinion the safeguards we get from being in the EU far outweigh the negatives.

    1. Doctor_Wibble
      Alert

      > Furthermore who has actually asked that we get out the ECHR?

      Probably no-one. I'm guessing it's an attempt to appeal to anyone in the exit crowd who has borders and/or deportation on their list and is 'meh' on other stuff without necessarily realising the other complications of the ECHR (and how many people do?).

      From what's been said by both sides so far I think the only sensible thing to do is flip a coin. Which means we have regressed as a democracy, back to the days where you can't vote if you don't have any money!

  8. Robert Ramsay

    Guess What?

    The EU are in the process of deciding whether our mass surveillance is illegal or not. I'm guessing this is what her rubbish dog-whistle is actually about. Unless she really wants to torture prisoners.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Guess What?

      > Unless she really wants to continue to torture prisoners.

      Fixed that for you.

      http://www.detaineeinquiry.org.uk/2013/12/statement-by-the-inquiry-december-2013/index.html

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Guess What?

      "Unless she really wants to torture prisoners."

      I really can't rule that out, sorry.

  9. Mephistro
    Facepalm

    This Theresa...

    ... sounds like a third of the DSM or so. A decade or two threading baskets while heavily doped in a quiet and discreet 'retirement facility' would do her lots of good. It would be even better for the rest of mankind.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: This Theresa...

      It's well known that diabetes can affect one's mental functioning -- are we seeing it here? Or is it just innate Tory beasliness with no health alibi?

  10. SVV

    Tories have been obsessed with leaving ECHR for ages

    Haven't you ever glanced at a right wing UK newspaper? They absolutely detest human rights because they protect us from their nastiest, most sadistic desires. Same with worker's rights - oh woe is me they hold back British businesses from being able to treat their employees as badly as they like by burdening them with "red tape".

    Oh well, it's what most people voted for, and they'll surely be raising a glass to May's proposal at the local Tory association HQ "Churchilll House" tonight. Ignorant of the fact that Winston Churchill was one of the driving forces behind the creation of the court.

  11. IsJustabloke
    WTF?

    ummmm....

    "She added these agreements help the UK "to turn foreign criminals away at the border, prevent money laundering by terrorists and criminals, get foreign criminals out of our prisons and back to their home countries, investigate cases that cross borders, and share forensic data like DNA and fingerprinting much more quickly."

    Can't say that agrees with the general perception which would be the exact opposite and perception as they say is king.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I quite like the "remainic"coinage.

    But, in the interest of balance, what are the other side called? Brexidiots? :-)

    1. Arthur the cat Silver badge

      Re: I quite like the "remainic"coinage.

      what are the other side called?

      Brextremists.

      1. Oldgroaner

        Re: I quite like the "remainic"coinage.

        English nationalists.

  13. WonkoTheSane
    FAIL

    When May opens her gob...

    EVERY b*llsh** detector on Earth goes up to 11!

    1. Vic

      Re: When May opens her gob...

      EVERY b*llsh** detector on Earth goes up to 11!

      Not mine. Mine went sproing and bits came out long before the needle had a chance to move...

      Vic.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bulk Datasets + Parallel Construction

    Opting out of ECHR, aka the right to judicial process and the right to privacy, wouldn't be enough. She'd have to opt out of British law too, and cancel Parliament.

    Look at Bulk Datasets, which we now know GCHQ has been assembling into giant warrant-less, freely accessible databases of British citizens. We learn this from a Privacy International's freedom of information lawsuit.

    She is asserting that Intelligence data collected for this purpose is used to support the police under the 2008 Counter Terrorism Act. See section 11.5 for her claim:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/504237/Bulk_Personal_Datasets_SIA_draft_code_of_practice.PDF

    I quote: "It further confirms that information obtained by any of the Security and Intelligence Agencies in connection with the exercise of any of its functions may be used by that Service in connection with the exercise of any of its other functions.For example, information that is obtained by the Security Service for national security purposes can subsequently be used by the Security Service to support the activities of the police in the prevention and detection of serious crime"

    Which means cases have gone to court built on evidence from Bulk Datasets.

    Do you remember all the court cases citing these Bulk Datasets as evidence? No? Me neither.

    Which means Parallel Construction has occurred. A false set of evidence hiding the use of Bulk Data Sets has been presented to the courts and the defense lawyer. e.g. they create a legal paper trail to cover the illegal one. This second, fake, evidence trail is the one cross-examined in the court.

    If the second evidence trail is a lie, how can we trust the first evidence set? The one hidden from the courts?

    There is no legal basis for Bulk Datasets. Her claim in 11.5 that any company can disclose any data to the agencies, and that that data can be used to assist investigations of crimes, is far removed from "FORCE companies to hand over data on specious interpretation of a 1984 law, stick that in a big database, search it freely for any purpose, keep it hidden from Parliament".

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    I'm not a British citizen/resident...

    But if I were, I might respond to Theresa May's "I'll have my cake and eat it too" desire to stay within the EU, while watering down the parts of the EU that actually protect the rights of the British people, with a suggestion that she take a lengthy stroll on a short dock, or that she pursue intimate relations with herself.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    STASI

    What part of "STASI" don't the people writing comments here understand??

    Theresa May is clearly determined to re-build the STASI in the UK and in 2016 -- and she and her colleagues in government and in the so called civil service are clearly determined to keep us all in the dark about what's going on at places like GCHQ.

    How (exactly) do we know that the UK is not -- at this present moment -- violating ECHR? Could Theresa May's position actually be evidence that she wants to cover up (more than at present!) egregious violations of ECHR?

    1. Mark 85

      Re: STASI

      I think you've touched on a good point. And it's just not the folks on the right side of the pond but also us on the left. It would seem that there's a competition in the race to bottom. Maybe there's an award for which country can be the first to out do Stalin's Russia or Mao's China?

      I've been watching both sides of the pond and it sure does look like there's a race on as to which government can be the most vile, most corporate-owned and the most Big Brother-ish.

  17. cantankerous swineherd

    human rights activists www.bbc.com/news/uk-35490105 ,

    social justice warriors www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/10/former-royal-aide-benjamin-herman-cleared-of-abuse-calls-sacking-met-chief , whiny crybabies or what?

    that was sarcasm or irony or something. anyhow Theresa is trying to tell you that laws are for the little people.

  18. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
    Coat

    Prüm agreement

    Is it just me that read that as Pr0n agreement?

    The dirty mac -------------------->

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