Conservative policy is for UK to remain ECHR member, shadow foreign secretary says

Shadow foreign secretary Andrew Mitchell has insisted it is official Conservative Party policy for the UK to stay in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

Speaking in the debate on the King’s Speech on Thursday, Mitchell gave way to Labour MP Liam Byrne who sought clarification on the Conservative Party’s ECHR stance.

Byrne asked: “Are we to take it from [Mitchell’s] remarks today that it is the policy of His Majesty’s loyal opposition that we should remain a member of the ECHR?”

Mitchell, considered a Conservative Party moderate, responded: “Well, that is certainly the policy of the opposition. And I hope it’s common across the House that we should remain [in the ECHR] at the very time when we need an international rules based order to tackle these common threats, climate change, migration, terror and pandemics.”

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