"This isn’t a knee jerk response to the rise of Reform"
Conservative Home: 20th February 2025: Steve Barclay MP lays out his case for quitting the European Court of Human Rights
"Immigration and security are consistently amongst the most important issues to the British people.
Yet it has been the ECHR which has stopped the tough action needed on small boat arrivals and deporting foreign criminals. This has once again been brought into focus with staggering reports of how the courts are applying ECHR rights in recent weeks – from an Albanian criminal avoiding deportation in part due to his child’s distaste for foreign chicken nuggets to schemes specifically put in place for Ukrainian refugees being opened up to potentially all conflict zones.
We should be proud of our many achievements in government, and the difference of having Conservatives in office is even clearer after the disastrous first few months of Labour in power. Yet, in light of one of the worst defeats in our history we need to be honest where we made mistakes.
One of these was not being bold enough to leave the ECHR.
Kemi Badenoch is absolutely correct to say that we need to focus on rebuilding trust, and that now is not the time to start setting out a detailed policy platform on every issue... But a high-level commitment to leave the ECHR is consistent with this, showing that we are listening and have understood what we need to do things differently...
...As Conservatives we’ve been willing to talk the talk on our frustrations with the ECHR but haven’t been bold enough to walk the walk. We need to get away from wishing for a policy outcome, without being willing to follow through on what that requires. I very much welcome Kemi’s commitment to “review every policy, treaty and part of our legal framework – including the ECHR and the Human Rights Act..."