Picture by Edward Massey / CCHQ

Kemi Badenoch ‘increasingly’ supports leaving ECHR as she issues ultimatum

Kemi Badenoch will declare she is “increasingly of the view” that the UK needs to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in a significant speech setting out the Conservative Party’s path to a “clear plan”.

In an address Friday, the Tory leader will stop short of a firm commitment to withdraw, but will set out five “common-sense tests” that will guide the party’s final decision. 

That decision will be announced at the Conservative Party’s annual conference in the autumn, Badenoch is set to say. 

“I have always been clear, that if our national interest means that we need to leave the ECHR we will leave”, Badenoch is expected to say. “The more we build our policy programme, the clearer it seems that to achieve our objectives we will need to leave the ECHR in its current form.”

She will add: “I have thought long and hard about this, and I am increasingly of the view that we will need to leave, because I am yet to see a clear and coherent route to change within our current legal structures.”

Badenoch will argue that past attempts at reform of the convention and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) that interprets and enforces it have failed. 

Badenoch will say the ECtHR, also known as the Strasbourg Court, has “shown no real interest in fundamental change.”

The Conservative leader will add: “It has rebuffed those European states calling for a new approach, and in its recent decisions — above on all climate change — it has shown ever greater willingness to invent new rights and directly overrule popular mandates.”

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But Badenoch will insist that before setting out a full commitment to leave, her party should have a “clear plan” in place to avoid the “years of wrangling and endless arguments” that characterised the Brexit process. 

Badenoch will say: “I won’t commit my party to leaving the ECHR or other treaties without a clear plan to do so and without a full understanding of all the consequences for all parts of our United Kingdom. 

“Because we saw that holding a referendum without a plan to get Brexit done, led to years of wrangling and endless arguments until it got sorted in 2019. We cannot go through that again.”

The Conservative leader will make specific reference to illegal migration and the need to fix our “broken asylum system”.

Badenoch will say: “We must fix our broken asylum system, so that the British government, not people traffickers control it. That means a total end to asylum claims in this country by illegal immigrants and removing immediately all those who arrive illegally and try to claim asylum.

“We need a new, sustainable system to admit strictly controlled numbers of those in genuine and actual need — with parliament having the final say on, not just the rules, but the exact numbers coming in.”

To this end, the Conservative leader has asked Lord Wolfson KC, the shadow attorney general, to lead a commission tasked with assessing the UK’s legal framework.

The work of Lord Wolfson will be guided by “five simple tests”, Badenoch is to say. 

In full, those tests are: 

  1. The deportation test: Can parliament, not international courts, decide who comes to and stays in the UK, and lawfully remove foreign criminals and illegal migrants?
  2. The veterans test: Can the UK stop “vexatious legal attacks” on military veterans and ensure the armed forces can fight without “one hand tied behind their backs”?
  3. The fairness test: Can British citizens be lawfully prioritised for social housing and other scarce public services?
  4. The justice test: Can the UK ensure prison sentences reflect parliament’s intentions and stop disruptive protests without legal challenge?
  5. The prosperity test: Can the courts be prevented from “pretending climate change is a human right” and can endless legal challenges to infrastructure projects be stopped?

The Tory leader will frame these as “basic tests of whether we are still a sovereign nation” and issue an ultimatum. 

She will declare: “If the commission makes clear that these tests cannot be passed under the current system, then the system must change. 

“If international treaties, including the European convention, block us and there is no realistic prospect of changing them then, we leave them. No hesitation. No apology.”

Josh Self is Editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on Bluesky here.

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