United Nations official invokes Nazi Germany to warn against human rights plan

François Crépeau is not afraid of controversy. The UN's special rapporteur for migrants’ rights last made headlines in the UK when he called on politicians to stand up to the "bulls--t" idea that migrants threaten British culture.

Now he has given an interview to the Sunday Times (£) where he invokes Nazi Germany to warn Britain against withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights.

It is thought Britain would have to do so under Conservative plans to scrap the Human Rights Act and replace it with a British Bill of Rights, in order to guarantee supremacy for the new Bill. The Convention was drawn up after World War II in response to the Nazi genocide and Britain was one of its first signatories.

While Crépeau said he had no issue with a new Bill of Rights, he warned against leaving the Convention on the basis it could "reduce the human rights protection". "If you have a government that says, ‘Well, there is too much human rights in this country, let’s reduce it’, at one point you might think it will reduce the rights of one category of persons but it has a tendency to spill over," he told the newspaper.

"We have to remember the 1930s and how the rights of the Jews were restricted in Germany and then the rights of the whole German people. I mean, countries that go down the path of reducing the rights of one category of people usually don’t stop there."

The Conservative former Justice Secretary Ken Clarke has previously warned if Britain pulls out of the Convention other countries with worse human rights record could do the same.

More: It might be harder to scrap the Human Rights Act than the government thinks