So in spite of great excitement beforehand, Theresa May didn’t confirm that the UK will seek a temporary withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights.
Instead, she announced a new treaty – a mutual legal assistance agreement – with Jordan in order to enable Abu Qatada’s deportation. This wasn’t nearly exciting enough for Tory MPs, who started demanding that the UK ignore the Convention and jolly well put Qatada on a plane today. May decided the best way to respond to this would be to crack a joke using Mark Reckless’ surname while explaining to him why the government must abide by the laws to which it is currently subject. The Home Secretary’s historic first attempt at a wisecrack in the Chamber did not go down well, though, given she’d picked on an MP who, in spite of his useful surname, is pretty cheesed off with her particularly after she and fellow Home Office ministers managed to avoid an awkward vote on the deportation of foreign criminals. He later raised a point of order complaining of ‘personal abuse’ from the Home Secretary.
Outside the Chamber, the Lib Dems were arguing that they hadn’t been approached about any plan to leave the Convention. And Ken Clarke popped up in the World at One studios to insist that he wasn’t ‘aware that we are actively looking at that’. But inside the Chamber, May was telling colleagues that this remained an option as the Prime Minister considered all options for reform on this front. She said:
‘The House will know that it is my clear view that we need to fix that relationship and that we should have all options, including leaving the convention altogether, on the table. The Prime Minister is looking at all options and that is the only sensible thing to do.’
She also reiterated her promise, which Coffee House readers recalled this morning, of a new immigration bill to deal with human rights issues around deportation more broadly, although the Home Secretary gave no suggestion about the timing of this.
As with many of these statements, this was as much about Tory backbenchers’ general frustration with the power that Strasbourg holds over Britain’s ability to make its own decisions. Whether or not the treaty will see Abu Qatada disappear into the skies on a plane wasn’t the real point of interest, but instead backbenchers wanted to probe whether or not the government will stand up to Europe. May and the Tory leadership will want to at least reassure their MPs that the long-term aim is for the latter to happen, even if coalition means that’s not possible for now.
UPDATE, 6pm: It’s probably safe to bet that Theresa May won’t be trying out any more jokes in the Commons. This is why Reckless was particularly annoyed that she tried to use his name in a pun:
@chrisdeerin @michaelpdeacon Her ‘pun’ = allegation I urged her to break law: false and defamatory 2me as lawyer. Would she repeat o/s Parl?
— Mark Reckless MP (@MarkReckless) April 24, 2013
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