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, in a move calculated to head off growing support for Reform UK. The Tory leader's stance has hardened since last autumn, when she said leaving the treaty would not be a 'silver bullet' for tackling immigration. In February, she said the UK would 'probably have to leave' if the treaty prevented the government acting in the national interest.
Despite private concerns from one-nation Conservatives that such a decision could force out moderate Tories, Badenoch is understood to have signed off plans to exit the international agreement. She is expected to announce the plan in a speech at the party's Manchester conference on Sunday, after a shadow cabinet meeting on the decision on Friday. The move will be seized on by political opponents as evidence the Tories have lurched to the right – Russia and Belarus are the only other European countries that have opted out of the ECHR – while it could lose the party support from the political centre.
In a blow to Badenoch on the eve of conference, another former Tory MP, Sarah Atherton, defected to Reform UK, saying the Conservatives 'had promised strength but delivered weakness'. In June, Badenoch set up a commission to examine whether the UK should withdraw from a series of international legal agreements, including the ECHR and the refugee convention, and overturn some domestic legislation, such as the Climate Change Act and the Equality Act.
Centrist Tory MPs have been keeping their concerns to themselves to avoid making the party's dire poll ratings worse. 'Given where we are I'm not speaking out against it,' one said, while another added it was 'difficult to argue against' given the party's circumstances. However, several Tories who have previously spoken out against leaving the ECHR, warning about the impact on the Good Friday agreement and the UK's international reputation, now appear to have changed their minds. 'The ECHR is failing us all. Europe needs a new convention on asylum and immigration to cope with the world of 2025, which is very different from the world of 1945,' one MP said.
A Labour source said: 'This is a desperate grab for relevance by the Conservatives, who are following Reform off the cliff edge in offering unworkable solutions that are against Britain's national interest.' A Conservative party spokesperson said: 'No decision has been taken. Kemi Badenoch will take a decision in consultation with her cabinet and that is happening on Friday.'
