Nothing is for ever. Love, summer, even faith, they come and they go. The same goes for international treaties.

These are all of their time, and times change. The European Convention on Human Rights, drafted in the 1950s and meant to lay down a framework for decency and humanity following a catastrophic and pitiless world war, has outlived its usefulness.

Now it is a means by which migrants smuggled by gangsters to our shores, people who have no legitimate right to come here, whom we can no longer afford to house and feed and care for and for whom there are no meaningful jobs, are able to avoid deportation.

But dare to say that and you are akin to a Nazi, according to Keir Starmer’s pal, Lord Hermer.

The Attorney General said in a speech last week that trying to pull out of the ECHR if it no longer served British interests was the “pick and mix” approach to the law that Nazi political theorists adopted in the 1930s.

He has since expressed his regret – a weasel word deployed by politicians who wish you to think they have apologised, when they haven’t – for a “clumsy” choice of words.

As a Jew, Hermer must be aware that such a slur is deeply offensive. As the son of a man who joined up on his 16th birthday to fight the Nazis, I am insulted and seething with anger.

Hermer seemed to concede in his speech to the Royal United Services Institute that the ECHR needed reform so that it retains “democratic legitimacy”.

He’s right that it is crying out for reform. But how do you do that when all 46 signatories to the treaty  are required to agree on any changes? Even if there were the will, it would take years.

And time is a luxury we don’t have. On Saturday alone, almost 1,200 migrants arrived on small boats from France. A record 11,000 have crossed the Channel this year and we are on course to receive 50,000 by the year’s end.

At the weekend, the Coastguard had to ask fishing boats to go to the rescue of a yacht and some kayaks because Border Force vessels and lifeboats were all too busy helping migrants heading for Britain on dangerously overcrowded dinghies.

Many of these were waved off by French police whom we pay handsomely to prevent the migrants embarking for the white cliffs of the promised land.

Sending them back is nigh on impossible. We have allowed our liberal-minded judiciary to interpret Article 8 of the ECHR – which guarantees the right to a family and private life – in any way they choose.

That can mean, as a friend of mine said jokingly, that a convicted rapist avoids deportation “because his child can’t get chicken nuggets back in Albania”. I wish that were as daft as it sounds, but sadly it’s much too close to the truth.

The ECHR was not sent down the mountain by God, etched in a tablet of stone. It is no more than a loose set of idealistic principles fit only for an ideal world.

We no longer live in such a place. Britain can take the lead on this and withdraw our formal commitment – without abandoning our own innate decency and humanity.

We should, before it’s too late.

*****

The spectacular eruption of Mount Etna reminds me of a terribly sad story.

I was on holiday in Sicily the last time this angry beast blew its top. We were staying at a clifftop hotel in Taormina with views across to the brooding volcano.

Among our fellow guests were an Indian man and his daughter. He was frail with a heart condition. But despite this, he was travelling to the world’s most volcanic hotspots in the hope of seeing an eruption before he died.

My wife and I chatted to them after dinner one night, then we went for a walk before bed. As we looked over at Etna, I noticed a ribbon of lava dribbling from the top. Cripes, I thought, it’s about to blow.

I mentioned this to the man at reception when we got back. No, no, he chuckled. Nothing to worry about, it’s always like that.

We retired for the night… and woke up to find the town (a beautiful place, incidentally) covered in ash. Actually, it is more like grey grit. It covered the streets and parked cars and women were busy sweeping it off their balconies.

Smoke billowed from Etna’s summit, lava trundled inexorably down its slopes.

But the old gentleman, whose imagination was consumed by the power and majesty of this natural phenomenon, had been taken ill overnight and was not able to appreciate the spectacle.

His life’s ambition thwarted at the vital moment. Tragic, really.

RICHARD DISMORE

4 June 2025