'Britain in Europe' member Scott Crosby argues in an editorial which has just appeared in the New Journal of the European Criminal Law that 'since the UK does not have any constitutionally entrenched and protected fundamental rights and does not have a constitutional court, it needs the ECtHR arguably more than most if not all other Member States of the Council of Europe'.

'The moment that safeguard is removed, the moment collective enforcement is rejected, the UK will have reinforced the power of the state over the individual and removed the protective mantle of the ECtHR'.

The editorial concludes that 'the growing disrespect for and the threatened demise of rights protection in general and the ECHR in particular must be opposed, lest Europe loses what it took centuries to achieve'.

It can be accessed from here (Originally published in the New Journal of European Criminal Law, Vol. 7, Issue 1, 2016 ((http://www.njecl.eu/) and re-published with the kind permission of Intersentia, Antwerp).