#echr

Because it's true. They are.

Transgender people are humans.

Squashing trans rights is denying humans of their human rights.

Cis people are also human and should care about this because

it is morally correct to care about other people and

if one group's rights can be stripped away, anyone's can.

But if there's one thing that I've learnt from the argument over the ECHR, it's this:

Conservatives think they're above humans.

I know that sounds hyperbolic, but it's the most succinct way I could put it. The type of conservative that supports Reform/Farage or their counterparts elsewhere, do not think that human rights apply to them.

I'm pretty sure that, in their minds, it works something like this. White people created civilization and are better than everyone else. Bleeding heart liberals invented human rights because they wanted to give the unwashed barbarians a leg up. That was dangerous because it gives them power. So the common sense position is to stop trying to help them, thus we don't need human rights at all.

That, in a nutshell, seems to be the thrust of conservative thought regarding the ECHR. Naturally there will be some similar house of cards when pointing out that trans rights are human rights.

How we prick this sense of exceptionalism I do not know, but it's a serious problem. These people who think they're above the need for human rights, because they're white or cishet or whatever, they vote. They vote against everyone's best interest, excepting the few rich arseholes whose lies they believe.

The European Convention on Human Rights enshrined our human rights in law, with the guiding principle of “never again”.

Today, government ministers from across Europe met to sign a political declaration that could weaken the ECHR. These changes will make it easier for European states to deport people, even when there are serious concerns about their safety.

Human rights are universal – they belong to everyone, everywhere. Today’s political declaration undermines this foundational principle and could allow the government to decide who is and who isn’t deserving of fundamental rights.

On the other hand, as a cis woman it gives me excellent cover to go into the men's toilets when the ladies have a queue, AND it may lead a new trend into gender neutral toilets in public (which are common enough on the continent) because it seems the guidance also says you can't force trans people to use the toilet that doesn't align with their gender.

I think what the Tories (and Labour) are missing here is that no matter how hard they go in on the anti-immigration rhetoric, they're not going to win back votes from Reform because that's not the main reason people are going to vote for them in the next election.

As much as it pains me to say it, Farage is the main reason why people are flocking to Reform and if it was Kemi, Keir, or even Tice that was leading the party then we wouldn't be seeing the same kind of Reform hype we're seeing now.

All these parties are doing is alienating there own dwindling voter base in a pursuit of voters who are too far indoctrinated into the cult of personality that is Farage's Reform.

Northern Ireland’s peace deal cannot be “negotiated away” by British political figures who want to see the UK quit the European Convention of Human Rights if elected, the Irish tánaiste has warned. The ECHR is an integral part of the 1998 Belfast Good Friday agreement and withdrawal would remove those foundations of peace, according to Simon Harris, Ireland’s deputy prime minister. “The ECHR’s guarantees cannot be negotiated away, despite what some politicians might claim,” he will tell the British Irish Association conference in Oxford on Friday. He will add that the ECHR was a “fundamental safeguard” and a “core part” of the agreement reflecting both countries’ shared role as guarantors of the 1998 peace accord. Nigel Farage, the Reform UK party leader; Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary; and Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, are among the most prominent politicians who have advocated to leave the ECHR. Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative party leader, has also said she would look into it. Harris will also reveal that the UK and Irish governments are to appoint an independent expert panel to try to end the “scourge” of paramilitary violence and intimidation that has dogged pockets of Northern Ireland society since the peace agreement more than 25 years ago.