Conservatives are focusing on threats to leave the European Court of Human Rights to distract people from their failures in government, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has claimed.
She was commenting on a new landmark ruling that the Swiss government has violated people’s human rights by failing to protect them from climate change.
Asked if the UK should leave the ECHR, Cooper said on GB News: “No. The thing is, the Tories will always do this. They always look for something else to blame and something else to distract from their chaos.
“It's not the ECHR that means we've got a crisis in our NHS, or that we've got real problems with energy bills shooting through the roof and not being part of tackling climate change.
“They're just sort of looking for something else to blame.”
In a discussion during Breakfast with Eamonn Holmes and Isabel Webster, she continued: “The thing about the ECHR is that it's part of the Good Friday Agreement, and we need to maintain the Good Friday Agreement and the peace settlement that was reached many years ago and that needs to be maintained.
“It's just about having proper international standards that we expect all countries to meet. But very often, this is used as a distraction from the real problems, which is let's get our economy growing properly again.”
She added: “Let's tackle the cost of living crisis. Let's tackle a crisis in our NHS or things that Labour wants to do that, frankly, the Tories are failing to do.”
On the publication of the Cass report on gender identity services, Cooper said: “This is a really important report, the Cass report. I really welcome it and Labour accepts all of the recommendations.
“We think they need to be implemented as rapidly as possible. Children, young people have been badly let down. That is what the report finds.”
She added: “The support for young people has not been based on evidence and it's really important when you've got children and young people's welfare there has to be proper evidence…
“There have already been changes made around things like puberty blockers, but we need to make sure that we go further and actually implement the findings of the Cass report.
“It's a really serious, thoughtful report and I hope the Government will now implement it as rapidly as possible.”
WATCH ABOVE.
