Protect my human rights

Here is the full text of the open letter I submitted to the new Sutton and Cheam Conservative MP in the Sutton Guardian this week:

Dear Paul Scully MP

I believe that I have the right to liberty; the right not to be tortured; the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; the right to a fair trial, and the right to be free from slavery or forced labour.

All of these rights and eleven more were established in the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights led by the UK and set up with the Council of Europe. The purpose was to prevent any state abusing its citizens following World War II and the atrocities of the Holocaust. These rights were later enshrined in the Human Rights Act 1998 to ensure that British courts could uphold them.

Page 60 of the Conservative Party Manifesto 2015 states ‘We will scrap the Human Rights Act and introduce a British Bill of Rights.’

As these rights were set down to protect the citizen from the abuse of the state, a scrapping of the Act is the state withdrawing my rights and redefining them. The UK Government should not have the power to change or take away my fundamental rights. The Human Rights Act is the British Bill of Rights.

I ask you to promise to protect my human rights as enshrined in the Human Rights Act and not support the Conservative Government when it seeks to remove them.

Jayne McCoy, Liberal Democrat and supporter of human rights.

I am not alone in my concern about this Conservative Government’s attack on universal human rights, see:

The British Institute of Human Rights: After the Election: The Human Rights Act, Protect what protects us all

Amnesty International UK: Save the Human Rights Act

38 Degrees: Save Our Human Rights

Equality and Human Rights Commission: Commission warns against ‘regressive’ change to human rights law

Liberty: Save our Human Rights Act

Counsel Magazine: The Case for the Human Rights Act

Fawcett Society: Threats to the Human Rights Act 1998

Liberal Democrats