Sarah Ingham: Leaving the ECHR can’t happen soon enough

Dr Sarah Ingham is the author of The Military Covenant: its impact on civil-military relations in Britain.

“Infamy! Infamy! They’ve all got it in for me!”

Thanks to a mega-decibel boom-box, Sir Keir Starmer’s resignation speech on Monday morning failed to bring to mind any of Shakespeare’s majestic reflections on the transition of power: it was less Coriolanus, more Carry on Cleo.

For the fourth time in four years the Downing Street lectern can be likened to a scaffold, signalling the death of Prime Ministerial authority. But what should have been a solemn national moment became farcical, down to that Prat in the Hat, Steve Bray.

The fanatical Remainer has been sounding off in Whitehall and around party conference venues at a gunfire decibel-level for the best part of a decade. He imposed himself on London’s Clubland when a Boris Johnson portrait was unveiled.

Rejoiners have been only too happy to indulge their pet jester’s antics. Things Can Only Get Better at full volume when Rishi Sunak called a General Election in 2024? What larks!

The joke wasn’t quite so funny for Labour on Monday as Sir Keir’s announcement was accompanied by Beethoven’s Ode to Joy belting out across SW1 – and into ears around the world.

It is unthinkable that, with their sense of national pride, historic moments in France or the United States could be similarly marred by a monomaniac. But here in Britain, we must suck it up, buttercup.

Who said irony is dead? A human rights lawyer, Sir Keir was in no position to object. Buffoon Bray’s right to breach our peace has been legally tested and ruled to be protected in law under Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, linked to the right to protest.

On Wednesday, Kemi Badenoch wrote to Met Police Chief Sir Mark Rowley asking why the Force had not appealed the court’s finding in favour of Bray.

Alas, by not acting, the Met is making clear whose side it is on. Similarly, Gaza march protestors in London got away with chanting “Israel is a terror state, kill all Jews.” Instead of arresting them for incitement, police officers preferred to turn a deaf ear.

The Human Rights Convention was drafted in 1950, shortly after Britain’s collective national endeavour of fighting total war.

The Conservative Party is committed to leaving the ECHR, as Rowley was reminded. Bray is providing another reason for doing so. It is time to sweep away British legislation based on an antiquated Convention that no longer serves Britain as it is now, rather than how the world was back in the 1950s.

Today, the closest most will get to combat is Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. In our Insta era of influencers and selfies, it is unthinkable there could be political resignations over NHS dentures as there were in 1951. Today, who under 30 wanting Love Island-contestant teeth would trouble an NHS dentist?

Since PM Starmer’s ousting, commentators have asked whether Britain is ungovernable. With the 10th anniversary of the referendum, inevitably many blame Brexit for the political turbulence. But few are reflecting on whether out-sourcing policymaking to Brussels damaged Britain’s ability to think for itself. Spoon-fed by Eurocrats for decades, instead of asking what works, the British state has grown fat, lazy and useless.

By raising the rights of the individual over the collective, human rights legislation is now actively undermining Britain as much as fish discos, unaccountable quangos and a £270 million, 350,000-page planning application.

On Monday, the logical conclusion was reached. One person’s narcissism superseded others’ focus on a moment of political significance – which could also have an impact on the global financial markets. The turnover in No.10 is already bewildering this country’s friends and allies: throw in the jowly jester’s Yakety Sax soundtrack (the Benny Hill Show theme) and it’s no wonder bond traders have taken fright at Basket Case Britain.

Perhaps Monday’s unamusing opera buffa was loud enough to awaken some doubts among supporters of the ECHR, a charter which makes it almost impossible to deport the 43,806 detected arrivals who came to Britain via illegal routes in the 12 months to March 2026.

The illegal migrants, the Gaza marchers and the Prat in the Hat are quick to claim their rights to gatecrash this country, to disrupt London week in, week out and to impose their views on the rest of us. Me. Me. Me. It really is all about them and, probably, their social media posts. They are exempt from any balancing responsibility to Britain, their fellow citizens or to the greater good.

Britain’s unwritten social contract relies on the state maintaining good order in the public realm. “O Freunde, Nicht Diese Töne!” (“Oh Friends, Not These Sounds!”), as Beethoven wrote in Ode to Joy. But Monday illustrates that human rights protect the discordant individual rather than the silent majority.