Here is one of those big hypocrisies that dominates polite society. We’re told, and pretend to believe, that all decent governments in Europe stand foursquare behind the concept of “human rights”, as defined by their official arbiter, Strasbourg’s independent European Court of Human Rights. Respecting the ECHR, we’re told, is a basic marker of humanity. Any government, like Britain’s, that can even contemplate leaving the court in order to implement a policy as ghastly as the Rwanda scheme must be on the high road to fascism.
Oddly enough, however, this isn’t the message you get from formal legal cases or private chatter among publicly “liberal” European politicians. In these circles, you see governments and officials engaged in constant fights with the ECHR because of the
