Tories deny mimicking Farage with plan to quit ECHR criticised by rights groups

Kemi Badenoch’s plan to exit the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) has been condemned by rights groups as a senior Tory denied following Reform UK’s lead.

The Conservative Party announced ahead of its conference in Manchester that it would withdraw the UK from the international treaty if it won the next election in an effort to curb immigration.

The Tories said so-called “lawfare”, including lawyers using the ECHR to halt deportation attempts, had “frustrated the country’s efforts to secure its borders and deport those with no right to be here”.

The move has been called a “cowardly” attempt to “gut this country’s human rights protections” by rights groups.

The traditional party of the centre-right has also been accused of lurching to the right and mimicking Nigel Farage, who has vowed to quit the ECHR if he enters office.

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp insisted there was “a massive difference” between his party’s plan and Reform UK’s.

He told BBC Breakfast: “Reform have slogans. They shoot from the hip. They write down slogans on the back of a fag packet. You remember last week Nigel Farage had some announcement, and it fell apart within about 10 minutes because he had forgotten about European Union citizens.

“What we have here is a very, very carefully thought-out position. It’s taken months of legal work. We know exactly what the implications are for things like the Belfast Good Friday Agreement, the Trade and Co-operation Agreement.

“We know exactly how we can then use the freedom outside the ECHR to get control of our borders.”

Tory leader Mrs Badenoch’s decision followed the conclusion of a months-long review by shadow attorney general Baron Wolfson of Tredegar, which found the ECHR had limited the Government’s ability to address immigration issues, as well as policies in a host of other areas.

Mr Philp said the review, as well as “another detailed set of proposals” explaining how border security would be tightened, would be published on Sunday.

Lord Wolfson, who was commissioned to carry out the review by the Conservative leader in June, argued that withdrawal from the ECHR was “the only feasible option” to gain full control of UK borders.

He added that he did not believe the Good Friday Agreement, the UK-EU trade agreement, and the Windsor Framework negotiated to ease post-Brexit trading arrangements were barriers to leaving the ECHR.

But critics say that quitting the treaty would jeopardise the Good Friday Agreement that ended Northern Ireland’s Troubles and strip UK citizens of fundamental rights.

Amnesty International UK’s chief executive Sacha Deshmukh said: “We should all be very cautious of politicians who try to take away the very rights that hold politicians themselves to account. Take this convention away and people will be vulnerable to the political whims of those who seek to undermine and deny them their rights…

“Scapegoating people fleeing persecution and other migrants as an excuse to gut this country’s human rights protections is not courageous, but cowardly. Stripping ordinary people of these protections will leave us all smaller, more divided, and less safe.”

Richard Atkinson, president of the Law Society of England and Wales, said: “The Conservative Party is putting political interest above the public good…

“Without the backstop of the ECHR, governments of whatever party will be able to erode our rights with no come-back.”

Sir Keir Starmer said this week that the Government was considering how Article 3 and Article 8 are interpreted.

The Prime Minister said international laws such as the ECHR would not be “torn down”, but that their legal interpretations would be reviewed in an effort to curb asylum claims.

Article 3 of the ECHR, on protection from torture and inhumane and degrading treatment, and Article 8, on the right to private and family life, have been used to halt deportation attempts.

Mrs Badenoch said on Friday: “I have not come to this decision lightly, but it is clear that it is necessary to protect our borders, our veterans, and our citizens.”

The issue became a dividing line between Mrs Badenoch and rival Robert Jenrick during last summer’s Conservative Party leadership election.

Mr Jenrick put withdrawing from the ECHR at the heart of his unsuccessful campaign, while Mrs Badenoch said the move would not be a “silver bullet” for tackling immigration.

Her change of heart comes as she seeks to reverse her party’s dire poll ratings at the annual gathering starting on Sunday.

On the eve of the conference, her party suffered the latest in a slew of defections to Reform, as London Assembly Member for Havering and Redbridge Keith Prince jumped ship to Mr Farage’s outfit.

In response to the pledge to leave the ECHR, a Labour Party spokesperson said: “Kemi Badenoch has adopted a policy she argued against in her own leadership campaign because she is too weak to stand up to her own party in the face of Reform.”

“Badenoch now thinks she is both incapable of negotiating changes to the ECHR with our international partners, and a sufficiently accomplished diplomatic operator to renegotiate the Good Friday Agreement, despite not even knowing some of the most basic facts about Northern Irish politics as recently as yesterday.

“This is a decision that has been forced on her and not thought through.

“While the Tories and Reform fight amongst themselves, this Labour Government is cracking down on people-smuggling gangs, deporting foreign criminals and bringing forward workable and decisive solutions to bring order to Britain’s borders.”

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said the move would do “nothing” to address issues with border control in the UK.

Sir Ed said: “Kemi Badenoch has chosen to back Nigel Farage and join Vladimir Putin by leaving the European Convention on Human Rights – a proud British creation championed by Churchill that protects everyone’s rights and freedoms.”

A Reform UK spokesman said: “The Conservatives had 14 years in government to leave the ECHR. Since then, it’s taken them 14 months to even decide what their policy is.

“Nobody trusts a single word they say any more. The Conservative Party is finished.”