Kemi Badenoch expected to announce plan to leave ECHR

Kemi Badenoch’s stance has hardened since last autumn, when she said leaving the ECHR would not be a ‘silver bullet’ for tackling immigration. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

Kemi Badenoch is expected to announce a plan this weekend to leave the European convention on human rights (ECHR) if the Conservatives win the next election, as the party attempts to halt a loss of support to Reform UK.

The move will be seized on by political opponents as evidence the Tories have lurched to the right – Russia and Belarus are the only two other European countries that have opted out of the ECHR – while it could lose the party support from the political centre.