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ONLY one in 10 people in Britain support scrapping the Human Rights Act, a poll published yesterday suggests.
As Tory ministers prepare to publish proposals to ditch the Act and replace it with a new British Bill of Rights, just 10 per cent of those surveyed thought that this should among the government’s top three priorities.
The ComRes survey of 2,051 adults, commissioned by Amnesty International, also found that more than three-quarters (78 per cent) believe that rights, laws and protections must apply to everyone equally in order for them to be effective.
And 67 per cent agreed that governments should not be able to choose which rights they enforce.
Amnesty International Britain director Kate Allen argued that the findings demonstrated the need for the government to abandon its “ill-advised” plans to repeal the Human Rights Act because there is “simply no appetite” for it.
“The British people clearly want the government to get on with their proper business of the day-to-day running of the country and abandon these destructive plans,” she said.
The new Bill of Rights would replace Labour’s 1998 Act, which implements the European Convention on Human Rights into British law.
There has been speculation that the new legislation could give British citizens greater protection than foreign nationals.
Plans for the new Bill of Rights were dropped from the Queen’s Speech after opposition from Tory backbenchers.
And it has emerged that the pledge was pushed to the back of the general election manifesto after private polling found that just 16 per cent of people identified the reforms as a priority.
Ms Allen added: “It took ordinary people a very long time to claim these rights and we mustn’t let politicians take them away with the stroke of a pen.”
