In light of the Abid Naseer case yesterday, and the fact that yet again a Judge is forced to do something deeply unpopular in order to protect the "human rights" of a foreign national, perhaps now it's time for the Prime Minister David Cameron, a self-proclaimed "Liberal Conservative", and the Deputy prime Minister Nick Clegg, a "Liberal Democrat" to put their money where their mouth is and show us all they really are liberals?
What do I mean, well it's simple but I doubt it will happen. Basically, they should seek to not only repeal the Human Rights Act, but also remove the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights and introduce a genuine British replacement based upon classical liberal notions of negative liberty along the same lines as the John Locke inspired US Constitution.
Of course, it probably wouldn't happen. Neither of them have the balls to take Britain down a route of defining rights in terms of what the state is not allowed to do. The continental approach that sees the state as something that exist irrespective of its citizens is the Gramscian orthodoxy now.
Depressing isn't it?
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