I would like to commend the Guardian for drawing attention to the issues regarding the Human Rights Act in Northern Ireland (Scrapping Human Rights Act ‘would breach Good Friday agreement, 11 May). As an elected member of the Northern Ireland assembly and justice spokesperson for the Alliance party, I feel it is imperative that I speak up for the people of Northern Ireland against what is ultimately a populist and ill-conceived plan to remove a fundamental part of the UK’s constitution. For Northern Ireland the situation of the Human Rights Act is much more complex than Cameron has considered, with the act a fundamental part of the Good Friday agreement which maintains confidence in the administration of government and justice in Northern Ireland and an integral part of the treaty between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom that facilitates it.

It is a damning indication of this new government’s priorities if it is felt too onerous for the UK to comply with basic human rights rulings, and for it to abandon any concept of carrying the torch for human rights internationally. The Alliance party will resolutely oppose the prime minister’s plans to sleepwalk out of the European convention on human rights. They are irrational, populist and retrograde, and endanger Northern Ireland’s hard-won peace settlement.

Stewart Dickson

Alliance, East Antrim, Northern Ireland assembly

• I enjoyed Keir Starmer’s piece (The arguments against the Human Rights Act are coming. They will be false, 14 May). It was good to see, for once, the positive arguments for the Human Rights Act. It’s a pity they only ever seem to appear in the pages of the Guardian.

But he misses one important point about Conservative plans to abolish the HRA. Those who oppose the HRA often do so on the basis that parliament should be sovereign and judges should not intervene. They are up in arms that there should be a method that allows the courts to say: “No, that law runs counter to an individual’s basic rights, it should be changed.” Boil that argument down to its bare bones and you are left with this: Cameron et al are furious that, when a British law or policy is found wanting in respect of human rights, under the current system they have to change their policy to be compatible with the human right rather than (as they propose) abolish the human right to fit with their policy.

It amazes me that a party so keen on selling its libertarian credentials is so eager to scrap the most fundamental means by which an individual can protect him or herself from an overbearing and abusive state. But then again, when I see the leader of that supposedly libertarian party saying that it’s time to call time on tolerance, I guess I should no longer be surprised.

Tim Goodwin

London