Clarke condemns May for ‘laughable’ attack on Human Rights Act

Home secretary should challenge researchers after claiming man avoided deportation because he owned pet cat, justice secretary says Kenneth Clarke has raised the stakes in his confrontation with the home secretary, Theresa May, accusing her of using a “laughable, child-like” example to criticise the Human Rights Act. In an intervention that will infuriate Downing Street, the justice secretary said May should challenge her researchers after claiming that a man had been able to avoid deportation because he owned a pet cat. Speaking to the Nottingham Post, he said: “I sat and listened to Theresa’s speech, and I’ll have to be very polite to Theresa when I meet her – but in my opinion she should really address her researchers and advisers very severely for assuring her that a complete nonsense example in her speech was true. “I’m not going to stand there and say in my private opinion this is a terrible thing and we ought to get rid of the Human Rights Act. “It’s not only the judges that all get furious when the home secretary makes a parody of a court judgement – our commission who are helping us form our view on this are not going to be entertained by laughable, child-like examples being given. “We have a policy and, in my old-fashioned way, when you serve in a government you express a collective policy of the government – you don’t go round telling everyone your personal opinion is different.” Downing Street will be furious with Clarke after No 10 said it was delighted with the announcement in May’s conference speech that illegal immigrants were abusing the Human Rights Act to fight deportation from Britain. The home secretary illustrated her case by citing the example of a Bolivian national who resisted deportation on the grounds he owned a cat, called Maya. May, who wants to abolish the Human Rights Act, told the Manchester conference about “the illegal immigrant who cannot be deported because – I am not making this up – he had a pet cat”. Speaking an hour later at a fringe meeting hosted by the Daily Telegraph, Clarke ridiculed May’s remarks. Clarke, a strong defender of the European convention on human rights, which provided the basis for the Human Rights Act, said: “I’ve never had a conversation on the subject with Theresa, so I’d have to find out about these strange cases she is throwing out. “They are British cases and British judges she is complaining about. I cannot believe anybody has ever had deportation refused on the basis of owning a cat. I’ll have a small bet with her that nobody has ever been refused deportation on the grounds of the ownership of a cat.” Kenneth Clarke Theresa May Conservative conference 2011 Conservative conference Human Rights Act Human rights Nicholas Watt guardian.co.uk

Posted by on October 6, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.