Top UN official likens UK to the Nazis over human rights

A SENIOR UN official sparked outrage by claiming Britain risks taking the path of Nazi Germany if it pulls out of the European Convention on Human Rights.

David Cameron has raised the prospect of the UK ditching the Convention under plans to scrap the Human Rights Act and replace it with a British Bill of Rights.

Professor Francois Crepeau, the UN’s special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, has warned the Prime Minister against abandoning the ECHR.

He said that, if it did so, the UK could go down the same route as Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. But a justice minister hit out at the ‘offensive’ comments – and demanded the UN distance itself from the remarks. The Tories want to repeal the Human Rights Act, blamed by many in the party for making it difficult to deport foreign criminals.

Last week Westminster Justice Secretary Michael Gove said plans were being delayed by a year while details of the policy are ironed out.

He faces opposition from Tory backbenchers including David Davis and former attorney general Dominic Grieve. Angela Smith, Labour’s new leader in the Lords, said: ‘If they are trying to get rid of the Human Rights Act, they are going to find it very tough to get that through the House of Lords.’

Professor Crepeau’s comments are not the first time senior UN figures have attacked Britain. Two years ago, UN housing rapporteur Raquel Rolnik, pictured, said housing-benefit cuts were breaching human rights.

Speaking ahead of a visit to the UK this week, Professor Crepeau said: ‘If you reduce the human rights protection, you reduce it for everyone. We have to remember the 1930s and how the rights of the Jews were restricted in Germany and then the rights of the whole German people. I mean, countries that go down the path of reducing the rights of one category of people usually don’t stop there.’

He said the repression of 1930s Germany was ‘exactly why’ the ECHR was established after the Second World War.

Justice minister Dominic Raab said: ‘Comparing proposals for a British Bill of Rights to Nazi persecution of the Jews is ignorant and offensive. The UN should distance itself from these ludicrous comments. Our reforms will protect fundamental rights (and) prevent abuse of the system.’