Introduction. I. The Fantasies. 1: Why the Human Rights Act Matters. 2: The Myth of the Marvellous Past. 3: The Seductive Power of the Present. 4: The Inevitability of Human Rights. 5: The Supremacy of the Human Rights Act. 6: The Supremacy of the Judges. 7: The Supremacy of Strasbourg. 8: A Charter for the Bad. II. The Facts. 9: Protecting the Exposed. 10: Making a Difference. 11: Telling Us Who We are. III. The Future. 12: Repeal: How Can We Tell? 13: British Values: Shrinking into Little England. Conclusion.

In the 2015 UK General Election, one of the major pledges of the Conservative party was the repeal of the Human Rights Act 1998, to be replaced with a UK Bill of Rights. In this book, Professor Conor Gearty puts forth his case for keeping the Human Rights Act by dissecting the so called 'fantasies' that are driving the case for repeal. Analysing the debate through the perspective of British law, history, politics, and culture, he examines what arguments are in place for the repeal of the Act and how these can be dismissed as no more than 'English exceptionalism'. Structured in three parts, the book first exposes the myths that drive the anti-Human Rights Act argument. Second, in a counter-balance to these arguments, Gearty outlines how the Act operates in practice and what its impact really is 'on the ground'. Third, he looks to the future and the kind of Britain we want to live in, and how, for all its modesty, the survival or otherwise of the Human Rights Act will play a pivotal part in that future.