Kemi Badenoch says ECHR is letting migrants 'mug' Britain and is blocking action on grooming gangs as Tory leader says UK will 'likely' have to quit
Kemi Badenoch today claimed Britain is 'being mugged' by Channel migrants as she said she is 'likely' to support quitting the European Convention on Human Rights.
In a major speech, the Tory leader bemoaned the effect of the treaty in a number of areas - including tackling illegal migration, deporting sex offenders, and protecting military veterans.
Mrs Badenoch set out her party's plans to establish a commission to investigate how to exit the ECHR, while the probe will also look at other international treaties.
She blasted the ECHR, which is enforced by Strasbourg-based judges, as being a 'sword used to attack democratic decisions and common sense'.
'The ECHR is now being used in ways never intended by its original authors,' Mrs Badenoch said.
'It should be a shield to protect, instead, it's become a sword, a sword used to attack democratic decisions and common sense.'
The Tory leader highlighted how human rights legislation had been used by members of grooming gangs to prevent their deportation from Britain.
Mrs Badenoch said she believed the UK 'will likely need to leave' the ECHR, but warned she 'won't commit to leaving without a clear plan to do so'.
In an attack on the impact of the ECHR on Britain's efforts to tackle the Channel migrant crisis, the Tory leader said: 'Britain is being mugged.
'Our asylum system is completely broken and will require a fundamental rebuild so that the British government, not people traffickers, control it.
'That means a total end to asylum claims in this country by illegal immigrants, and removing immediately all those who arrive illegally and try to claim asylum.
'We need a new, sustainable system to admit strictly controlled numbers of those in genuine and actual need, with Parliament having the final say, not just on the rules, but the exact numbers coming in.'
Mrs Badenoch explained her commission, being headed by shadow attorney general Lord Wolfson, would examine the 'unintended consequences' of quitting the ECHR.
In her address in Westminster, she said: 'Because it is clear that the ECHR is a major issue, I'm not asking Lord Wolfson if we should leave, that's a political not a legal question.
'I'm asking him to set out how we would leave and to consider what the unintended consequences might be, not least, in Northern Ireland, if we decide to go down this route, we must do so knowingly.'
Earlier, senior Tory MP Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said the Tories were 'increasingly of the view' that the UK needs to remove itself from the oversight of Strasbourg judges.
Mr Philp suggested the commission being established by his party was about 'getting the detail right'.
'We are increasingly of the view that we do need to leave,' he told Times Radio.
'But what we're not going to do is just shoot from the hip and make that commitment without proper thought.'
The shadow home secretary added: 'My view is that, in principle, yes, we need to leave. But we also need to get the detail right.'
Tory sources said the commission will also examine the case for leaving the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and rewriting the Equality Act and Climate Change Act.
The new stance puts the Conservatives on course to include a pledge to quit the ECHR in their next manifesto, creating clear blue water with Labour.
Sir Keir Starmer's controversial Attorney General, Lord Hermer, has said Labour will 'never' quit the ECHR.
He was forced to apologise last week for likening those in favour of the move to Nazis.
Mrs Badenoch said the Strasbourg court is unreformable and accused it of showing 'ever greater willingness to invent new rights and directly overrule popular mandates'.
She insisted that she has never had 'any particular obsession with international law or with our treaty arrangements', but that work on a radical new Tory policy platform has convinced her that it will be impossible to deliver while in the ECHR.
'The more we build our policy programme, the clearer it seems that to achieve our objectives we will need to leave the ECHR in its current form,' she said.
'I have thought long and hard about this, and I am increasingly of the view that we will need to leave, because I am yet to see a clear and coherent route to change within our current legal structures.
'Some say reform is the answer, but I say we have tried that before (and) the Strasbourg court has shown no interest in fundamental change.
'It has rebuffed those European states calling for a new approach and, in its recent decisions – above all on climate change – it has shown ever greater willingness to invent new rights and directly overrule popular mandates.'
Mrs Badenoch has set the commission five 'common sense' tests for assessing whether human rights laws are getting in the way of vital reforms.
The deportation test will assess whether Parliament, rather than the international courts, is able to determine who comes to the UK and is allowed to stay here.
Mrs Badenoch said Britain should have the ability to remove foreign criminals and illegal migrants 'even if they have family here or claim they would be at risk if sent home'.
A second 'veterans test' would examine whether the current legal framework allows ministers to 'stop our veterans being endlessly pursued by vexatious legal attacks' using human rights laws.
A 'fairness test' will look at whether the authorities can 'put British citizens first in social housing and in receiving scarce public services'.
A 'justice test' will look at the impact of human rights laws on the ability of the police to deal with issues like the disruptive protests staged by eco-activists.
And a 'prosperity test' will examine whether treaties would prevent the Government from ditching costly climate change measures and cutting red tape holding back economic development.
Mrs Badenoch argued the tests are 'not extreme demands', adding: 'They are basic tests of whether we are still a sovereign nation able to make our own laws and govern ourselves.
'If the commission makes clear that these tests cannot be passed under the current system then the system must change.
'If international treaties, including the European Convention, block us and there is no realistic prospect of changing them then we leave. No hesitation. No apology.'
Although Britain left the EU in 2020 it remains a signatory to the ECHR and is subject to the jurisdiction of the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights.
The ECHR was incorporated into law in Labour's 1998 Human Rights Act, allowing people to bring cases in the British courts.
The commission will look at the issues involved in leaving, such as how to avoid destabilising the Good Friday Agreement, which includes a commitment to the ECHR.
Mrs Badenoch will set out whether she plans to leave the ECHR at the Tory conference in October, when the investigation will report back.
Elsewhere, the head of the Council of Europe warned that rising migration may result in changes to how the ECHR operates.
Alain Berset, the secretary-general of the Council of Europe, told The Times: 'We are witnessing a world where things are changing rapidly.
'It is accelerating. We see this, and it means that it is normal that we must also adapt to this. We need adaptation.
'We need discussion about the rules that we want to have, and there is no taboo.'
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