After the events of the last week it seemed inevitable that there would be a market on Le Royaume-Uni withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights and Smarkets have obliged. Sagacious observers like David Herdson have noted the Tory Party’s response to the recent ruling by the ECHR shows the Tory party have gone quite mad.

The terms of this bet are perspicuous which makes backing No in this market obvious. Based on the precedent set by R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union if the government wishes to withdraw us from the ECHR the government will not be able to do so without an Act of Parliament giving the government Parliament’s permission to do so.

My expectation is that even if the government introduced such legislation this week it would turn into the political equivalent of The Battle of The Somme in the Lords and the Parliament Act of 1949 would apply taking us in to 2023.

Based on the logistics I would be astonished if any government tried to withdraw the UK from the EHRC without an explicit manifesto commitment.

TSE