Torching Winston Churchill's legacy 'close to government policy', James O'Brien declares
15 June 2022, 14:59 | Updated: 15 June 2022, 17:11
Torching Winston Churchill's legacy 'close to government policy', James O'Brien declares
Torching Winston Churchill's legacy is "close to government policy", James O'Brien has declared.
James made the comment while discussing the European Convention on Human Rights on his show..
His words have come after Boris Johnson has hinted at the idea of leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, after the first deportation flight to Rwanda was cancelled due to a European Court of Human Rights ruling.
Mr Johnson has said: “The legal world is very good at picking up ways of trying to stop the government from upholding what we think is a sensible law.
“Will it be necessary to change some laws to help us as we go along? It may very well be and all these options are under constant review.”
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The European Court of Human Rights is an international court which was set up in 1959.
The court rules on individual or state applications which allege violations of civil and political rights outlined in the European Convention on Human Rights.
The European Convention on Human Rights was originally proposed by Winston Churchill and British lawyers were involved in drafting it.
James raised the question of "how people can be outraged by the prospect of somebody graffitiing a statute of Winston Churchill" and at the same time be "supremely comfortable with the idea of torching one of Winston Churchill's most enduring and important legacies".
James made clear that in raising the question he was thinking about Cabinet ministers and newspaper editors and not just "your next door neighbour or your uncle Terry".
Summarising the outlook he had described, James said: "So graffitiing a statue [is a] capital offence [and] torching Churchill's legacy [is] close to Government policy."
