Europe

Enough is enough. The British Bill of Rights is set to return: a consequence of the government’s running battle with parliament over the European Convention on Human Rights. Recent days have been filled with clues and suggestions of imminent reform: Dominic Grieve, a former advocate of the ECHR, went so far as to assert that Britain may leave the convention. Cameron let slip the news that a Bill Of Rights commission is to be convened at PMQs; at the time he was answering a question about the Supreme Court’s controversial sex offenders’ register decision. There are no details as to what the commission will consider, but Theresa May aired the guiding philosophy during her statement on the sex offenders’ register.

Yesterday, parliament asserted its supremacy before the European Court of Human Rights. As Ross Clark explains, it has been a long time coming. The Final Indignity, 10th November 2001 by Ross Clark It wasn't so long ago that the very mention of the words 'European Convention on Human Rights' in conservative circles was enough to provoke frothing at the mouth. Of all the horrors to emanate from the Continent, here was the final humiliation: British ministers ordered around by the bigwigs of European justice. No longer would we be able to beat our children or tell them that they can't wear earrings and Motorhead T-shirts to their Latin lessons. Murderers, rapists and all would be let loose on the streets, their incarceration ruled illegal on some technicality.

The Davis Straw motion on keeping the ban on prisoner votes has just passed by 234 votes to 22. It is a crushing victory on what was a very good turnout given that both front benches were not voting. The 22 against the motion were a bunch of Liberal Democrats plus the Ulster MP Lady Hermon, the Plaid MPs Jonathan Edwards, Elfyn Llwyd and Hywel Williams, the Green Caroline Lucas,   Labour MPs Barry Gardiner, Kate Green, Glenda Jackson, Andy Love, Kerry McCarthy, John McDonnell, Yasmin Quereshi  and  one Tory Peter Bottomely, David Cameron now finds himself between a rock and a hard place. His MPs hate the idea of giving prisoners the vote and if he tries to force them to do it, he’ll end up in a very messy fight.

In continental lore, it is Britain that is often seen as the greatest impediment to EU integration. The government's EU Bill initially caused horror in the rest of Europe. Would Britain have to vote for each treaty change, even those needed to enlarge the Union? Before the text of the bill became clear, every self-respecting eurocrat spat the name 'Britain' over their lait russe. Even now, they are not best pleased. But in future it may not be Britain, but Ireland that will block any further EU integration. For Ireland is turning a lot more eurosceptic. The role of the euro in Ireland's decline remains a subject of debate. In eurosceptic circles, there is wilful ignorance of the role played by Ireland's politicians. Much better, it seems, to blame the euro alone.

Thursday’s debate on the backbench motion on prisoner voting tabled by Jack Straw and David Davis is set to be a real parliamentary event – a rare occasion where the will of the elected legislature might just make a big difference.  The real news will not be how many endorse the ban, but which MPs – aside from those abstaining Government Ministers and Denis MacShane – choose to bow to Strasbourg.   MPs preparing to speak out against Strasbourg are now armed with a powerful academic case.  A new Policy Exchange report authored by the political scientist Michael Pinto-Duschinsky – Bringing Rights Back Home – outlines how the UK can address the growing problem of conflicts between judges and politicians in human rights cases.

A weird, sprawling kind of speech from David Cameron in Davos this morning. It started off on an unusually, if expectedly, gloomy note: all talk of Europe's debt-induced decline in the face of competition from India, China and Brazil. And he emphasised, of course, that Britain would, and should, stick to its current trajectory of "tough" deficit reduction. But it's where it went from there that was more striking still. Cameron contrasted his position with that of "the pessimists". These people, he claimed, have a charter which includes propositions such as, "we in Europe are incapable of solving our debt and deficit problems," and, "we're attached to liberal values that are leaving us far behind the juggernaut of authoritarian capitalism".