Yes, we can leave the ECHR without breaking the Good Friday Agreement and EU Trade Agreement
Our exclusive yesterday caused a furore – and you read it here first
Montage © Facts4EU.Org 2025
The ECHR wasn’t British, UK membership isn’t needed for GFA peace deal, nor for EU TCA
It was written mostly for ex-fascists and new Communists and Churchill never agreed to be judged by it
Yesterday the Facts4EU.Org and Stand for Our Sovereignty teams took a 48-page academic-style paper written for policy wonks and turned it into mainstream news. Having been given an advance copy of the paper by former Thatcherite minister Lord Peter Lilley, we actually read it. The implications of its contents were immediately clear.
We recommend that readers may want to read our report yesterday, if they haven't already done so, before reading today's.
Alternatively, why not read the great write-up by GB News, before they invited Lord Lilley on to TV last night to talk about all of this. (Video below.)
It turns out that the UK can leave the ECHR without:-
- Breaking the Good Friday Agreement that has brought comparative peace to Northern Ireland
- Breaking the Trade and Cooperation Agreement
- Becoming a pariah state on the world stage
Leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) simply has to be done correctly and this would then be a major step along the road towards regaining our sovereignty. It is also the vital first step to full control over our borders and the ability to deport whomsoever we please.
The realistic way to regain control, versus the pomp with no circumstance
Sir Keir Starmer is apparently struggling to get any form of migrants deal out of an apparently unappreciative French President whose state visit has been so lavish that anyone would think this visitor was the best friend of the United Kingdom.
Instead Emmanuel Macron is the man who has consistently been highly critical of the UK, as obstructive and as vindictive as possible, and who has consistently refused to do the one thing that would stop the channel boat migrants within a few short weeks – simply taking his migrants back.
The really important news yesterday was not about Macron
Today we can offer three ways of accessing this groundbreaking news about the ECHR:
- A video recording of Lord Lilley discussing his paper at length at an event of the Centre for Policy Studies
- A video of Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg interviewing Lord Lilley on GB News last night
- A textual summary of Lord Lilley’s evidence regarding the GFA and Withdrawal Agreement
1. Lord Lilley – CPS Discussion, 9.00am, London – Approx 55 mins
Credit: YouTube - Centre for Policy Studies
2. Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg interviewing Lord Lilley, ‘State of the Nation’, GB News, 9.00pm – Approx 9 mins
Credit: YouTube - GB News
A major achievement by 'Stand for Our Sovereignty'
We believe this to be an important contribution in the moves to arrest the current trend for giving away the UK’s sovereignty one piece at a time. We were able to summarise the significance of elements of Lord Lilley’s paper both in the reports we ran yesterday and also in private conversations with the media. The results of Lord Lilley’s research were worthy of being seen by millions of people, we felt. Today we will be promoting them much more strongly.
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Brexit Facts4EU.Org Summary
3. Extracts from Lord Lilley’s paper on the GFA and WA
3.1 The Good Friday Agreement (GFA)
“the GFA necessitates the incorporation of the ECHR rights explicitly into Northern Ireland law and requires adherence to those human rights standards. But it does not require the UK to remain a member of the ECHR or to enshrine ECHR rights in law covering Great Britain.”
3.2 The Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) with the EU
“The TCA does not require the UK to remain a member of the ECHR.
“In the event that the UK decides to leave the ECHR, Article 692(2) gives the EU the right to terminate Part 3 of the Agreement, which relates to ‘Law Enforcement and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters’, from the date we give notice of our withdrawal.
“Equally, Article 526 gives the UK the right to cease to apply the terms of Part 3 to any member state which ceases to ‘participate in, or enjoy rights under, provisions of Union law relating to law enforcement and judicial cooperation in criminal matters’. And Article 692(1) gives both parties the absolute right to terminate Part 3 at nine months’ notice (as against immediately under the two rights-related clauses) for any reason whatsoever.
“What is significant, however, is that there is no presumption of automatic termination of Part 3 if either side sees a change in the human rights institutions on the other side. This is because Part 3 is important and valuable to both the EU and the UK – its objective, as spelt out in the agreement, being to facilitate co-operation on the prevention, investigation, detection and prosecution of criminal offences and the prevention of and fight against money laundering and financing of terrorism’. To forgo that co-operation would be a self-inflicted loss.”
3.3 Would withdrawal secure our borders?
“How would the situation change if the UK withdrew from the ECHR and repealed the HRA? As long as the UK remained a party to the Geneva Refugee Convention, we would be obliged to offer asylum to anyone with a ‘well-founded fear of persecution’.
“This involves officials and tribunals making a very difficult assessment about events which the claimant says happened and/or (even more difficult) may happen in future – in a country outside British jurisdiction. In practice, the UK gives claimants a great deal of benefit of the doubt. This is partly driven by the ECHR.
“Also, the Geneva Convention requires refugees to be given access to the courts on the same basis as nationals of the country of refuge. Even if the asylum application is refused, the claimant cannot be ‘refouled’ to a country which may not be safe nor, in practice, to the safe country through which they may have passed.
“In short, leaving the ECHR may well be a necessary step to reducing the number of those successfully claiming asylum or refugee status and increasing the number who can be removed – but it will not, on its own, be sufficient to resolve the problems.”
It is worth mentioning here that the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention was written in its original form in relation to the aftermath of WWII. It has been stated many times that even with modifications it is unsuitable for the economic illegal migration in vast numbers that has been taking place over many years.
Given the near-impossibility of getting agreement for change from all 146 signatories it would perhaps be more appropriate for the UK to make a declaration that it is resiling from certain of its terms. This may even gain the support of many of the countries on the receiving end of today’s problems. It is also worth pointing out that there is no formal ‘punishment’ procedure and provided the UK took proportionate measures it is highly unlikely for this to cause any significant and lasting difficulties.
4. The ‘Made in Britain by Churchill’ myth
The simple fact is that neither Prime Ministers Attlee nor Churchill ever agreed to the ECHR having any sovereignty over the United Kingdom and neither did either of them allow any petitioning of the court by individuals.
Lord Lilley goes into some detail regarding the drafting of the European Convention and it is clear that our Prime Ministers of the time saw it as something to help in preventing the excesses of WWII from developing on the continent again. It speaks volumes that Churchill never agreed for unelected foreign judges, making law on the hoof, to have any rights or supremacy over the Parliament of the United Kingdom: the rightful, elected lawmakers.
Observations
The British Common Law system and our centuries of having elected Parliaments make laws renders the entire concept of subjection to the ECHR an entirely alien proposition that should never have been agreed to by Harold Wilson. It is perhaps informative to note that he did this during a Christmas recess and Parliament itself was never consulted.
Stand for Our Sovereignty and Facts4EU teams both consider withdrawal from the ECHR to be an essential element in the eventual regaining of full sovereignty as an independent country.
Please, please help us to carry on our vital work in defence of independence, sovereignty, democracy and freedom by donating today. Thank you.
[ Sources: The Rt Hon The Lord Lilley | Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg | The Centre for Policy Studies | GB News ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.
Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Thurs 10 July 2025
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