It has become an article of faith in some quarters that the UK’s withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights (the ECHR) would breach or undermine the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement. The Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, played this card only last week, in response to the Reform party’s proposals for addressing illegal migration. For her part, the Leader of the Opposition, Kemi Badenoch, said that ECHR withdrawal ‘could affect the Good Friday Agreement and needed to be done in a way that would not destabilise the country or the economy’. Even Nigel Farage, the leader of the Reform party, seemed to concede the point, saying that the Belfast Agreement would need to be ‘renegotiated’, implying that without a new agreement, UK withdrawal from the ECHR would be a breach.

This apparent

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