Victoria Derbyshire challenges Richard Tice over claim ECHR withdrawal won’t ‘unravel’ the Good Friday Agreement
Victoria Derbyshire has grilled Reform Deputy Leader Richard Tice over his claim that leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) wouldn’t affect the Good Friday Agreement.
Tice made this claim despite the fact that the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) is underpinned by UK membership of the ECHR, and even Nigel Farage has acknowledged that withdrawing from the Convention would require the GFA to be renegotiated.
If elected in 2029, Reform wants to leave the ECHR in order to implement a mass deportation plan.
The Good Friday Agreement, which ended 30 years of violent conflict in Northern Ireland in 1998, received overwhelming support in referendums held in both the North and South of the island of Ireland.
Derbyshire used this point to question whether Reform still respects the outcome of referendums, drawing a connection to the party’s stance on Brexit.
“I want to check that you still believe in following the result of referendums,” the BBC Newsnight presenter said.
Tice responded: “Yes I do, we’re quite good at referendums, we won a referendum.”
However, Derbyshire challenged Tice on this, stating that Reform’s plan to withdraw from the ECHR would effectively “unravel” the democratic outcome of the Good Friday Agreement referendum.
The Reform deputy leader claimed that this was “a complete misinterpretation and a misstatement of the reality”.
Tice said that while the ECHR is embedded in the GFA, the agreement does not say that the UK must stay in the ECHR.
He said “it is specifically with regard to legislation in Northern Ireland [complying with ECHR rights]”, adding that “there are a number of different ways that different barristers interpret it”.
He claimed that barristers have advised him that leaving the ECHR would not unravel the ECHR. Derbyshire continued to point out that “People voted for the Good Friday Agreement as it was set up which involves the ECHR.”
The Reform MP responded: “And that doesn’t necessarily legally need to change. That is the reality.”
Derbyshire challenged Tice, stating: “That doesn’t make sense.”
In practice, although Tice argues that UK membership of the ECHR is not legally required to uphold the Good Friday Agreement, leaving the Convention would significantly undermine the Agreement and would be complex to renegotiate.
Last year, the The Northern Ireland Affairs select committee found that the UK government would “knowingly be in breach” of the GFA if it withdrew from the ECHR and said that Northern Ireland is “often overlooked whenever the prospect of ECHR withdrawal is raised”.
A Downing Street spokesperson said: “Anyone who is proposing to renegotiate the Good Friday Agreement is not serious.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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