Dominic Raab is a Tory rising star. He is currently chief of staff for Dominic Grieve MP. He has served David Davis in the same capacity and he will doubtless go far. In his recent book, The Assault on Liberty: what went wrong with rights (Fourth Estate), Raab flies a kite for the Conservative party on the Human Rights Act.

The book is an easy read, though a certain degree of excavation is required to get to its core. The case of the ‘metric martyrs’ had nothing to do with human rights: the European Union and the Council of Europe are totally different entities. The relentless march of domestic health and safety legislation is similarly irrelevant. Even more irrelevant is the growth of an alleged ‘compensation culture’, and if anyone is to be identified as giving this a decisive boost then step forward Lord Mackay of Clashfern. As (Conservative) Lord Chancellor, he opened up conditional fee agreements as a vehicle for replacing legal aid.

A more structural problem is that the argument of the book is developed in terms of a Manichean opposition between a Conservative approach to civil liberties (right) and a Labour approach to human rights (wrong). The position of both parties is actually rather more nuanced. David Cameron was cheered to the rafters by the Police Federation for his blunt repudiation of the Human Rights Act. However, Ken Clarke – now returned from exile to add a bit of weight to the shadow cabinet – dismissed this as ‘gesture politics’. As for Labour, Jack Straw may have introduced the Human Rights Act, but a strong rump of the party is against it – including three former home secretaries – Charles Clarke, John Reid and David Blunkett.

The issue is not really a party political one. The underlying opposition is between those who assert the supremacy of parliament against all comers and those who accept the value of judicial commentary when parliament goes too far. The common law view of liberty is that all are free to do what is not forbidden. The sting in the tail is that parliament may forbid what it likes. Thus, it introduced the internment of foreigners during the Second World War and the courts, imbued with traditional British values, supinely refused to require even minimum guarantees of fair process.

Raab has a good point in showing how strong parliament can be when put to proof of its defence of civil liberties. Witness the defeat of the government's proposals to bring in 42 days of detention before trial. However, Thatcher’s government was not noticeably libertarian. On ground that the Conservatives now decree as consecrated to the long-established practices of the common law, Michael Howard abridged the right of silence and sought to restrict jury trial, only giving way on the latter in the face of overwhelming resistance.

The lesson of history is that governments of all persuasions tend to be casual about civil liberties in direct proportion to the size of their majorities. Understandably perhaps, ministers of all parties feel the weight of executive responsibility. Sometimes parliament, as a whole, resists intrusion – as the House of Lords has done under both Conservative and Labour administrations. Often, however, it does not. Raab quotes the scandalous legislation that allows the retention of DNA from those unconvicted of any crime. The decision of the European Court of Human Rights that will stop the practice came after publication of the book, but it does rather demonstrate the restraining force of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Therein lies the rub. Almost every other country in the world accepts that core freedoms need protection from a clear constitution enforced by an independent judiciary. That is certainly the US model. The British form of parliamentary democracy is remarkably helpful to those who want, in the words of the Conservative Lord Hailsham, ‘elective dictatorship’. But surely it is all too clear that someone must guard the guards.

Raab does not like being bound by the European Convention. He would rather start again with a homegrown bill of rights. He has a point: there is a democratic deficit in relation to the convention. Winston Churchill ratified it without a parliamentary vote. However, Raab’s suggestions for how we might evade our responsibilities are unworthy. Every UK government since 1951 has implemented European Court judgments, if only because of the reputational cost of doing otherwise. No UK government could realistically renounce the European Convention for the same reason. What a godsend that would be to governments, from Russia to Turkey, that are restive under the yoke of the convention.

The book’s argument demonstrates why human rights and civil liberties are too important to be left to party politics. The UK is bound by the European Convention on Human Rights and, like our membership of the European Union, it would be helpful if all serious political parties accepted that constitutional fact. The real job is to integrate the deep strengths of the traditional concepts of British civil liberties with the force of the internationally agreed norms of human rights. It was the latter, for example, that encouraged the House of Lords to take such a strong stand against the use of torture even in civil cases – where the common law position was much more equivocal. The two traditions need to be melded – not set up in opposition.

Let us hope that, if the Conservatives come to power and Raab’s career flourishes, as it no doubt will, his kite is quietly lowered and stealthily stowed away.

Roger Smith is director of the law reform and human rights organisation Justice