Jumping to conclusions

A bit cavalier, perhaps? Not thought through, even? Perhaps - almost - a knee-jerk reaction? The Guardian reports:

"David Cameron has said the Conservatives would "scrap, reform or replace" the Human Rights Act unless the government can reach a memorandum of understanding to enable foreign criminals to be deported to their countries of origin.
Responding to Wednesday's high court ruling that the nine Afghans who claimed asylum after hijacking a plane had the right to remain in Britain, the Tory leader told today's Sun that it was wrong to allow "the human rights of dangerous criminals to fly in the face of common sense".
"Being able to balance the danger they pose to the UK if they stay, with the danger to them if they are returned to their country of origin, is no longer possible."
He said the government's interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights and its passage into UK law as the Human Rights Act had compounded the problem."

I rather doubt if it would be that simple. The Human Rights Act enables the enforcement of the European Convention on Human Rights; the Act could be repealed tomorrow but that would not prevent those who consider that their rights have been infringed from seeking redress in Strasbourg (as they could and did before the Act was introduced in 1998). Or is Mr Cameron suggesting that the UK should resile from the European Convention to which it signed up in 1953 and to which 44 other European states are also parties?

I am quite prepared to accept that human rights may cause problems for the anti-terrorism agenda, but could we have a little more clarity about what can or should be done?

And, needless to say, the position in Scotland is slightly different in that the European Convention is to a certain extent written in to the Scotland Act.