Tory leadership contender Robert Jenrick has said the UK must leave the European Convention on Human Rights because trying to reform it would take decades and be “doomed to failure”.
Mr Jenrick’s rivals have criticised his position on the international agreement, which he has blamed for blocking efforts to crack down on illegal immigration and deport foreign offenders.
The senior Tory also insisted that the promise of a binding cap on legal immigration is necessary to help win back votes from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
The former immigration minister’s stance has been criticised by fellow Conservative leadership candidates Kemi Badenoch and James Cleverly, who suggested he was offering “easy answers” or “soundbites and quick fixes”, which would not deliver results.
But Mr Jenrick told reporters in Westminster: “On immigration, I’ve been very, very clear to people about what my view is. I think that we begin to bring back the millions of voters we lost to Reform by immediately, this autumn, being clear about where we stand.
“On legal migration, that is a cap set by Parliament in the tens of thousands.
“On illegal migration… if you come here illegally, you’re detained, you’re removed within days either back to Albania or to a safe third country like Rwanda, whatever is available in the years ahead.
“To do that, I have come to the conclusion that we have to leave the European Convention on Human Rights. I don’t believe it’s reformable.”
There is “no consensus” within Europe about how to change it and “any attempt to reform it would be a project of decades”, he said.
Kemi Badenoch, also standing to replace Rishi Sunak as Tory leader, said: “People who are throwing out numbers, saying we’ll leave the ECHR and so on, are giving you easy answers.”
This is the lowdown on the ECHR and why it is a political battleground.
What is the European Convention on Human Rights?
The ECHR is a treaty that established the European Court of Human Rights as a supranational court of appeal for cases to be heard when they have gone as far as they can in domestic courts.
It took effect in 1953 and the ECHR was set up in 1959. It rules on individual or state applications alleging violations of the civil and political rights set out in the convention. Since 1998, it has sat as a full-time court and individuals can apply to it directly.
Over a 60-plus-year history, the court has delivered more than 10,000 judgments, which are binding on the countries concerned, leading governments to alter their legislation and administrative practices in a wide range of areas.
The ECHR’s case law makes the convention a powerful instrument for meeting new challenges and consolidating the rule of law and democracy in Europe.
The court is based in Strasbourg, in the Human Rights Building designed by British architect Richard Rogers in 1994 – a building whose image is known worldwide.
From here, it monitors respect for the human rights of 700 million Europeans in the 46 Council of Europe member states that have ratified the convention.
What would leaving the ECHR mean?
Despite Brexit, the UK remains a member as the court is not an EU institution but the Conservative Party has had a long history of disagreement with the Strasbourg court and has on numerous occasions not ruled out leaving.
This notably came to light when former foreign secretary Dominic Raab sought to circumvent the court by introducing a “British bill of rights”.
This did not become established as lawyers have argued that having a British bill while still being a member of the ECHR would not free the UK from Strasbourg rules.
However, Tories have pressed on and sought for such a bill to make it easier to deport foreign criminals by restricting the circumstances in which their right to family life would trump public safety and the need to remove them.
More recently, former home secretary Suella Braverman called into question the UK’s membership of the ECHR over the previous government’s plan to send migrants on flights to Rwanda. Under ECHR conventions, the policy was ruled unlawful, which frustrated the Tories and ultimately meant no planes were ever sent to the east African nation.
Labour immediately scrapped the Rwanda policy upon taking office and Sir Keir Starmer has said he will never seek to leave the ECHR.
So while leaving is not an idea likely to take a foothold under the new government – its popularity among Conservatives means the issue is unlikely to go away.
