Badenoch is bowing to pressure from immigration hardliners
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch is bowing to pressure from immigration hardliners in her party, as she is expected to announce an exit from the European Convention on Human Rights as party policy.
The announcement is expected to be made at the Conservatives’ party conference in mid-October.
Several senior Tories, including shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick and shadow home secretary Chris Philp have repeatedly said the UK needs to leave the convention. Badenoch’s move appears aimed at appeasing these figures and remaining as leader.
It is also a core Reform policy, in another sign that Badenoch is chasing after Farage’s party.
Badenoch instructed her Shadow Attorney General Lord Wolfson to instruct her on how such a move would be completed back in June.
Back in February, Badenoch said “at some point, we will probably have to leave the ECHR”.
The right’s fixation with leaving the convention comes from the idea that it will help them deport all migrants without any protections against human rights violations.
However, former Conservative MP and shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve said in a recent interview, the Refugee Convention, rather than the ECHR, is what underpins the way asylum applications are processed.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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