4 weeks ago
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A future Conservative government would be open to dismantling more treaties as a means to deport people from the UK, Kemi Badenoch has said at the start of a Tory conference focused almost exclusively on immigration policy.
Making the first of two addresses to the gathering in Manchester, the Tory leader formally set out her proposal for the UK to quit the European convention on human rights (ECHR) as part of a wider bonfire of protections including an end to legal aid for migrants and the right to take migration decisions to tribunals or judicial review.
A future Conservative government would be open to the possibility of amending or quitting other international agreements, she said, opening the possibility of the UK leaving the UN’s 1951 refugee convention.
Leaving the ECHR “is a necessary step, but not enough on its own to achieve our goals”, Badenoch said. “If there are other treaties and laws we need to revise or revisit, then we will do so. And we will do so in the same calm and responsible way, working out the detail before we rush to announce.”
The plan to leave the ECHR was announced just before the conference as part of a radical and sometimes draconian package of anti-migration measures including a pledge that all asylum seekers arriving by unofficial means would be sent to their own or a third country within a week.
Another plan involves the formation of a “removals force”, billed as being modelled on Donald Trump’s semi-militarised Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agency, with a remit to deport 150,000 people a year.
In a speech directly after Badenoch, Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said that if a foreign national in the UK “expresses racial hatred, including antisemitism, or supports extremism or terrorism,” they would be deported.
It was not immediately clear if this would apply only to people convicted of a crime for such actions. The Conservative party has already promised to deport any UK-based foreign nationals convicted of all but the most minor offences.
Unveiling the ECHR plan, Badenoch said this followed a review of the issue by Lord Wolfson, the shadow attorney general, who concluded the only feasible way to gain control of borders was to quit the treaty.
“And so to me and the shadow cabinet, the resulting policy decision is also clear,” she said. “We must leave the ECHR and repeal the Human Rights Act. Conference, I want you to know that the next Conservative manifesto will contain our commitment to leave.”
Badenoch said there would be “particular challenges in Northern Ireland”, where the ECHR is included in the Good Friday agreement. Badenoch said she would get Alex Burghart, the shadow Northern Ireland secretary, “to examine this issue”.
