Ali Smith hits out at 'obscenity' of scrapping Human Rights Act

Delivering English PEN’s annual HG Wells lecture, novelist declares plan for a UK bill of rights as ‘evolution going backwards’

The Baileys prize-winning novelist Ali Smith has defended the Human Rights Act, describing government plans to replace it with a UK bill of rights as “evolution going backwards”.

Delivering the second annual English PEN HG Wells lecture, the Scottish writer spoke of her despair at the treatment of migrants and told her audience at the Edinburgh international book festival that the abolition of the act should be “on everyone’s watch”.

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