Liberal Democrats Will Defend Our Human Rights
In Coalition, the Tories said they would abolish the Human Rights Act as quickly as possible if they had their own way. You can back our campaign to protect it here.
They also threatened to walk away from the European Convention on Human Rights, with no guarantee about what would come in its place.
The only reason they could not follow through on their plans is because they were blocked time and again by the Liberal Democrats.
Now David Cameron - presiding over a wafer-thin majority and held to ransom by the right wingers on his backbenches - is back on the war path.
His first act in Government is not to explain how he plans to rip £12bn out of the welfare budget but a blatant, aggressive and cowardly attack on our human rights.
By drawing up plans to scrap the Human Rights Act (HRA) and laying the groundwork to pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) - the Tories are revealing their true colours.
It sends a clear message to the British people: the next five years will be nastier, less liberal and less compassionate than any Government in living memory.
But we must fight the Tories every step of the way and stop them from trampling on our hard-fought freedoms and rights.
The Human Rights Act and European Convention on Human Rights are not some piffling pieces of legislation, dreamt up by bureaucrats in Brussels to tie us in red tape. These are British rights, drafted by British lawyers. They are designed to place public authorities in the UK under a strict, non-negotiable obligation to treat people with fairness, equality and dignity.
What sort of message would the Tories send to brutal dictators across the world if we abandoned our human rights' obligations?
These are fundamental rights we all have and they define how we treat our citizens and offer our citizens protection from the state.
David Cameron has shown he cares less about the rights of the British people than he does about placating his anti-European backbenchers.
Liberal Democrats fought in Government to stop the Tories trashing our human rights laws. We must all come together now to stop them trying it again.