The UK’s largest party in Parliament has just produced proposals that would elevate a UK ‘Bill of rights” over the European Convention of human rights and consequent rulings by the ECHR’S court.   The proposals have been widely dismissed as “hasty”, “ill-thought-out” ”legally illiterate” and “widely derided”, writes chief political correspondent Tim McNamara.

It is so ill-considered that the proposal actually clashes with the constitutional arrangements already made with Scotland and Wales as part of the current devolution of powers settlement in the UK?

The Conservative’s (Tories) proposals have to be seen in a political context. With the threat of the UK Independence party (UKIP) taking away crucial votes at the next general election, the Tories believe that they should pander to the sort of people who might consider supporting UKIP.

Because the issue of the European Union has become so toxic for those on the right and centre-right of English politics, the ECHR has become conflated with membership of the EU. Hence opposition to ‘being ruled by Europe’ is enough to loathe both institutions. Thus UKIP is benefiting greatly from any nationalist reaction to external rulings that impact on the UK.

But there is a strategic method to the Tories’ madness for some. The more legally and politically astute supporters of downgrading the ECHR know that full membership of the EU is normally dependent on being full signatories to the ECHR and having a responsibility to implement the rulings of the court. Any withdrawal from such commitments would cause a constitutional crisis with the EU’s institutions.

Such a crisis, if it could be instigated in the lead-up to the next election, would allow the Tories to ‘wrap themselves in the flag’ and claim leadership of the nationalist right in the UK. This coupled with their promise of an IN/OUT referendum in 2017, they see as enhancing (they hope) their appeal to those of the electorate who are tempted to support UKIP.

It’s not the mere fact that the UK would disavow the ECHR and its Court in itself that would be the major problem. The main consequence would be the signal sent to those still on the road to full democracy that human rights are now not a main priority.

Daniel Hannan, a Conservative MEP, might dismiss this argument, pointing out that Russia is a signatory to the Convention. However, Hannan’s point is misleading and puerile. Very few people expect Russia to rigorously abide by all of the article of the ECHR, especially under its current leadership.

People across Europe do expect the UK to do so. Whether the Conservatives like it or not, by excusing itself from the Convention and by extension the rulings of its court the Tories would be setting a precedent that would be of a huge symbolic nature. Only Belarus in Europe does not recognise the rulings of the court of the ECHR.

Imagine what message would be sent to authoritarian parties (of both left and right) across the EU. For example the French Front National, Greece’s Golden Dawn, Latvia’s For Fatherland and Freedom would find great succor if the Tories were able to make good on their threat.

The Tories strategy can be described as an allegory of Cervantes’ Don Quixote. People like Chris Grayling and Theresa May, cheered on by a multitude of Conservative backwoodsmen and woman tilt at the ECHR as a windmill in an utterly pointless exercise. Whilst the likes of more EU-friendly MPs such as Ken Clarke (a former Justice Minister) and Dominic Grieve (former Attorney-General) utterly despair at their leaders’ unhinged actions.

The proposals released by Chris Grayling look like they were written one evening, on the reverse of a failed judicial review brief after three or four bottles of fine Bordeaux in El Vino’s wine bar opposite the UK’s High Courts on the Strand in London.

Many Conservatives claim that Magna Carta, signed in 1215, is protection enough from ‘big government’, yet it is un-enforcable in court as it does not give any power to an individual to resort to the courts. Even the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 is bettered by the Human Rights Act as regards false imprisonment by the authorities.

‘Jack of Kent’ a renowned legal expert and frequent tweeter said “A general rule: the greater a person’s hostility to the Human Rights Act, the less likely that person actually knows what the Act says”.

The Tories attack on the ECHR disavows years of legal commitment to the values of the ECHR. From Winston Churchill to Maxwell-Fyfe (lead UK prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crimes trial), the UK has been steadfast in its political and legal support for the ECHR.

It might have caused discomfort to a series of governments with its rulings on equal pay, religious discrimination, freedom of expression, open reporting in court, right to a fair trial, but no previous ruling party has ever realistically considered withdrawing from the convention.

As David Banks wrote very recently in the New Statesman,  a British magazine “…apart from protection of sources; openness of the courts; freedom from imprisonment without due process; protection from police snooping and the freedom that allows us to function as journalists every day – just what has the Human Rights Act ever done for us?”

At heart, the Tories objection to the ECHR is wrong-headed, dangerous and ignorant in the extreme. The Tory lead Minister on the issue, Chris Grayling’s defence is fatuous and nonsensical. Besides many of the objections listed above, Grayling attempts to claim that Churchill  wouldn’t recognise as legally sound many of the courts recent judgements. To this end Grayling claims that the Court’s rulings and jurisprudence has moved a long way from the ECHR’s founding principles.

Yet, as Justice Minister, Grayling presides over a legal system that is constantly organic, updating legal maxims, taking account of changing social and personal circumstances as well as reinterpreting statute. It’s called common law in the UK and it’s exactly the same thing that the court of the convention is doing also.

What Grayling and his ilk in the Conservative party fail to understand is that the ECHR is there to protect citizens from their own government. It is not there to assist governments that attempt to circumvent human rights for their own political expediency.