On Fantasy Island: Britain, Europe, and Human Rights

In the 2015 UK General Election, one of the major pledges of the Conservative party was the repeal of the Human Rights Act 1998, to be replaced with a UK Bill of Rights. In this book, Professor Conor Gearty puts forth his case for keeping the Human Rights Act by dissecting the so called ’fantasies’ that are driving the case for repeal. Analysing the debate through the perspective of British law, history, politics, and culture, he examines what arguments are in place for the repeal of the Act and how these can be dismissed as no more than ’English exceptionalism’.

Structured in three parts, the book first exposes the myths that drive the anti-Human Rights Act argument. Second, in a counter-balance to these arguments, Gearty outlines how the Act operates in practice and what its impact really is ’on the ground’. Third, he looks to the future and the kind of Britain we want to live in, and how, for all its modesty, the survival or otherwise of the Human Rights Act will play a pivotal part in that future.

Conor Gearty, Professor of Human Rights and Director of the Institute of Public Affairs, London School of Economics

Conor Gearty is Professor of Human Rights Law and Director of the Institute of Public Affairs at LSE, having previously worked at Cambridge University and at King’s College London. His books include Can Human Rights Survive? (2006) and Liberty and Security (2013) as well as Freedom under Thatcher (1990) and The Struggle for Civil Liberties (2000) (both with Keith Ewing), and Civil Liberties (2007). He is a Fellow of the British Academy and a Bencher of Middle Temple and has honorary degrees from Sacred Heart University, University College Dublin, Roehampton, and Brunel Universities.