Justice Secretary Alex Chalk has just confirmed the inevitable: he’s scrapping Dominic Raab’s Bill of Rights. Responding to a question from Bob Neill in the Chamber, Chalk announced the government has binned the Bill just two months after Raab was forced to resign over accusations of tomato-lobbing. Chalk said:

“Having carefully considered the government’s legislative programme in the round, I can inform the House we have decided not to proceed with the Bill of Rights. But let me say that the government remains committed to a human rights framework which is up to date and fit for purpose and works for the British people. We have taken and are taking specific action to address specific issues with the Human Rights Act and the European Convention [on Human Rights]…”

The Bill was designed to reduce challenges to public authorities on dubious grounds and reducing retrospective court challenges that second guess bodies’ “professional judgement exercised under considerable pressure.” Now it’s in the shredder…

UPDATE: Labour are jumping all over this. Shadow Justice Secretary Steve Reed has released a statement:

“This is the third time the Government have u-turned on their Rights Reduction Act. The plans were a dangerous threat to peace in Northern Ireland, prevented us from deporting foreign terrorists and dented the rights of rape survivors. What’s astonishing is that a string of Tory prime ministers indulged this half-baked nonsense for so long. If you needed any more evidence that this clownish Conservative government is a directionless political circus, this is it.”

Labour attacking the Tories for U-turns…