A non-binding motion in the House of Commons yesterday was passed 234-22 in favour of maintaining a blanket ban on prisoners voting, putting the UK political debate further at odds with the 2005 European Court of Human Rights ruling Hirst v United Kingdom (No 2) that judged that the blanket ban on British prisoners exercising the right to vote is contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights. This vote is set against the backdrop of Policy Exchange’s paper “Bringing Rights Back Home” that mooted the idea of the UK pushing for reform of the European Court of Human Rights, and if that fails, to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the Court.

At the same time, the Duma in Russia was yesterday passing a motion 234 votes to 22 to ensure the blanket ban on gay and lesbian people organising marches and protests in Russian cities was maintained, despite the European Court judgment in Alekseyev v. Russia. In response, speaker of the Duma Boris Gryzlov stated that it was offensive to Russia’s sovereignty for a foreign court to be able to decide how Russia could discriminate against its citizens, and he proposed withdrawing from the jurisdiction of the court.

Of course the second paragraph is a counter-factual, although the cited European Court case is real.

But this gets to the heart of this issue.

Any international commitment entered into by a government implies a ceding of sovereignty, and as a result any country – the UK, Russia, all the other signatories to the ECHR – is not completely free to do as it wishes in the areas in which sovereignty is pooled. Yet of course very few British politicians are saying that – the focus is only on whether prisoners should have the right to vote in the UK or not. The debate is not set in the international context, the context of mutual responsibilities.

So when Policy Exchange cites a YouGov poll that of course finds that UK citizens would prefer the final court of appeal for human rights matters to be in the UK, they miss the other side – human rights for all kinds of groups across Europe have been improved thanks to the work of the European Court of Human Rights. The question would better be “Do you want human rights cases to be judged only in the UK, knowing this would endanger the human rights of other Europeans - including gay rights, the rights of women, the rights of minorities – if all other countries did the same?”

Add into the mix a completely incoherent approach to sovereignty and international treaties fostered by this government (why no referendum on the new sovereignty-ceding Defence and Security Co-operation Treaty with France for example, but a proposed referendum lock on any ceding of power to the European Union?) and a Prime Minister ill at ease on these matters thanks to those on his back benches phobic of anything with Europe in its title, and you have a very messy and unpleasant situation indeed.

[UPDATE] David Rennie of The Economist has more in Bagehot’s Notebook, as ever demonstrating he’s a top class journalist.

Crucifix - CC / Flickr

It’s not just the Daily Mail at fault for utterly lazy, shit and f**king crap journalism about European Politics. Henry Porter in today’s Observer is horribly, dreadfully, shockingly awful:

When the European Court of Human Rights announces a ban on crucifixes in Italian schools, you can either celebrate the liberal march of secularism or deplore the illiberal attack on religious expression and national tradition.

Perhaps there is a third option which is to say that this has nothing to do with rights and everything to do with the EU’s manic drive to standardise behaviour and attitudes, in the same way as it regulates the transportation of livestock and the safety specifications of new mowers.

The crucifix is none of the EU’s business and, as we celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall this weekend and the miraculous bravery and persistence of the Christian congregation of the Nikolaikirche in Leipzig, who sparked the East German revolutions with candles and peace prayers every Monday evening, it is perhaps right to remember that the last Europeans to ban the display of religious symbolism in schools belonged to the communist regimes of the east.

Whatever you think of the merits of the case or not, the European Court of Human Rights is NOT, note IS NOT, part of the European Union. It is the human rights court of the Council of Europe. Henry Porter, thicko journalist, get this into your dumb skull. Yes, I know it might be fun to poke fun at the European Union and standardization, but get your damned facts right!

It’s not often that something makes me angry enough to resort to language befitting of Devil’s Kitchen, but Googling for news of the recent European Court of Human Rights case about crucifixes in Italian schools brought me to this article in the Daily Mail with the headline shown above (they might subsequently edit the headline).

No, you lazy, ignorant f**kwit of a journalist Nick Pisa, THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS IS NOT PART OF THE EU. It is the Human Rights Court of the Council of Europe. It’s not the EU. Get it? Thicko. You could have found that out in, oh, all of 10 seconds by checking with Google and coming across the court’s page on Wikipedia.

And people always whine that blogs are inaccurate and disreputable… I maintain that this blog is a lot more accurate than the UK press on European political matters.

[UPDATE - 22h00 CET]
The Daily Mail have now changed the headline, and @Phelim on Twitter has informed me that the journalist in question is blaming the London sub-editors.