Badenoch ‘increasingly' supportive of leaving ECHR, as she launches exit probe
'I have always been clear that if our national interest means that we need to leave the ECHR, we will leave,' the Conservative leader will say.
She will add: 'But I say that not because of any particular obsession with international law or with our treaty arrangements. I say that because for me, the most important thing is making our country safer, richer and fairer.'
The ECHR was a dividing issue in last year's Conservative leadership election, with Mrs Badenoch's rival Robert Jenrick championing the idea that Britain should pull out.
Critics of the treaty want to leave it because they believe it has been used to frustrate attempts to deport migrants from Britain.
Mrs Badenoch has stopped short of calling for the UK to leave, but in February, she suggested that the UK would 'probably' have to withdraw from the convention if it stops the country from doing 'what is right'.
Now the Conservative leader will say she is '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'.
But a 'clear plan' and 'full understanding' of the consequences of leaving are needed first, Mrs Badenoch will say as she announces a commission into the matter led by Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, the shadow attorney general.
Five 'common sense' questions will be asked by the investigation, branded a series of 'tests' by Mrs Badenoch.
These include whether the UK can 'lawfully remove foreign criminals and illegal migrants to their home country or elsewhere — even if they have family here or claim they could be at risk if sent home', and if the Government can stop veterans being 'pursued by vexatious legal attacks'.
The Commission will also look at whether British citizens receive preference ahead of migrants for 'scarce public services', if prison sentences 'actually reflect Parliament's intentions', and how to prevent 'endless legal challenges' to planning applications.
Mrs Badenoch will say that the 'system must change' if her investigation 'makes clear that these tests cannot be passed under the current system'.
She will add: 'If international treaties, including the European Convention, block us and there is no realistic prospect of changing them, then we leave them. No hesitation. No apology.'
The Conservative leader 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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Define the Mandate Change Britain for the better and every part of it better off. Our mandate is to make Britain better and every part of it better off. We should emphasise that our first steps are exactly that – they are the starting point not the summit of our ambitions. There is much work to be done to precisely understand what people believe they have elected a Labour government to do. Polling suggests that sorting out the NHS is the public's top priority, closing followed by stopping the boats and improving living standards. Median living standards have been stagnating since 2005—before the economic crash. GDP growth is necessary—too many people don't have a sufficient share of it—but people need to feel that they are better off. We need to get productivity and therefore wages to rise. That is easier said than done, but GDP does seem to be growing again and inflation is coming back to normal. 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Keir has been the one to confront that culture within the party, to take them on and win. We must approach every action in government with clarity about who is the villain: who is responsible for getting us into this situation? And how are we taking them on to turn things around. The answer to this, at first, is easy: the Tories are the villains. Our audits will lay bare the damage that they have done to our economy, society and public services. We should not lose sight of the outrageous behaviour that characterised their time in office. This is no time for magnanimity. This is the time for accountability. And we should make sure that we hold them individually as well as collectively accountable for their actions. Every Minister, MP or Adviser who referred their friends or associates into the 'VIP Lane' for Covid contracts should face investigation, but it cannot just be about the 'what' it must also be about they 'why'. 3. Keir Starmer – Your force for change A government with a colossal majority is no more able to govern than one with an ordinary working majority, and may, in fact, face more challenges not less. On our own side, there will be pressure to adopt causes that are popular with our own supporters and to lose focus on the electorate. There will be hundreds of MPs with rather a lot of time on their hands who may start to behave like super activists or campaigners, rather than parliamentarians. And our internal critics will surely make the argument 'you had the power to do anything—and this is all you achieved…' as if the size of the majority somehow directly correlates to solving complex and long-term policy problems. It will, therefore, be important to maintain discipline within our own ranks. Keir should be positioned as unlike ordinary politicians—rather than the typical politician who makes all sorts of promises and then breaks them, Keir should do the opposite. He should consistently under promise and over deliver. This can become powerful because it means that when Keir speaks people will be more inclined to listen. At the same time, Keir should be positioned as the force for change in the country. A cast-iron approach to 'what gets said gets done' should be combined with storytelling around Keir's priority to put the Party, and therefore the British state, in the service of working people. Keir must be associated with big inward investment deals, projects getting shovels in the ground on projects. KS is the dealmaker, the builder and the challenger. We should use the full power of the government machine to do this. This will also mean putting people who are aligned with our mission into the key institutions of the state. The Tories have spent 14 years rewarding their donor and friends with jobs in public institutions; we should not do the same. But we should clear out the beneficiaries of nepotism and appoint capable people who share our ambitions for the country. We will need a steady drum beat of announcements from central government that reinforce this narrative and occupy political space. Finally, a key message should be that Keir is making Britain 'respected abroad' again. We should think about what international visits would cement this reputation—in Europe, the United States, and beyond. 4. Energising the party and keeping it mobilised We need to mobilise the party to the same cause as the government: to be in the service of working people. We could begin by asking all backbenchers to spend the summer in a major listening exercise where they go out and meet people in their communities and in public services and listen to the difficulties that they face. We could create a programme that would enable them to feedback these stories to Keir and to the Cabinet. It would create activities for our MPs and it would offer a means to cement in the public's mind just how bad things have become and lead both their constituents and local parties on our agenda for economic reform. As well as listening, we need to make sure that we deliver on the causes that are most precious to our members and supporters as well as to the country. The three issues that are most salient for our base are child poverty, climate breakdown, and services and benefits for society's most vulnerable. We should make sure that vulnerable groups are systematically examined in the audits of public services. We could follow up on the audits by asking a leading figure to look at reforms to help society's most vulnerable. Child poverty must come down under a Labour Government and we need a visible strategy to cut it. 5. Brining the country together Large parts of the country will feel disenfranchised by this election. 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[The following section was commissioned by McSweeney but not written by him] Lessons from around the world Four ways centre-left governments make themselves vulnerable to the populist right 1. They underweight the costs of net zero, so populists become defenders of working people. The transition to net zero is this century's greatest economic transformation. Countries that seize this opportunity will secure significant economic benefits which will, in the long run, significantly outweigh costs. But there are big costs, especially in the short term. Many changes to decarbonise homes (heat pumps, retrofits, electric vehicles) are currently unaffordable and disruptive for households to adopt. In Germany, Olaf Scholz's government nearly fell apart as voters reacted angrily to the idea of having to ditch boilers as part of a ban on new oil and gas heating systems from 2024. The far-right AfD complained of an 'eco-dictatorship', and the popularity of Scholz's government tanked. It has not recovered and the policy has been watered down. Without an approach led by political strategy, the populist right can position itself as being on the side of working people, against a government captured by the moral imperative to decarbonise. A small group of voters, who live largely in safe Labour seats, feel climate change is a key issue, and an equally small group, on the right of the Tory coalition, are fully-fledged deniers. Most, and particularly swing voters, take a nuanced view. They think climate change is real, but working people should not be forced to pay to solve the problem, and that the government should focus on issues that more immediately affect them.1 We must constantly focus policy and argument on 'energy security' (reducing dependence on hostile foreign nations), the cost of living (jobs and reducing bills), and the local environment (nature, water, green spaces). 2. They look reluctant to act on migration, ceding 'control over borders' to populists. Biden pledged to reverse most Trump-era policies on immigration. On his first day in office, he paused nearly all deportations, and vowed to show compassion to those entering the United States while securing the southern border. He wanted to demonstrate that the US was humane and that government could work. Instead, he has found himself on the defensive. Many voters say immigration is their top concern and most do not have confidence in Biden to address it. Biden's approach has failed even on its own terms: the humanitarian crisis on the border and in major US cities is worse than ever, as Democrat Mayors have highlighted. With an eye to the next election, Biden has adopted a tougher posture, calling for stricter enforcement at the border. But it looks inauthentic, and as a result, is not working. Voters sense, correctly, that Biden's first instinct was to adopt a compassionate approach to migrants, not to secure America's borders. His conversion to tougher action looks cynical – something he has been forced to do because of public pressure, not because he really believes it. We must be tough from the start. The first things we do on migration must be about getting control over our borders, smashing the gangs, and tackling small boats. We must earn the trust to address more fundamental challenges: Home Office reform, or more boldly, reframing legal migration as a matter of industrial strategy by moving legal migration out of the Home Office and into the Department for Business and Trade (DBT). What we say and do must constantly underscore the argument that the Tories lost control of our borders, and we are taking it back. 3. They become defenders of the system, allowing populists to be seen as agents of change – in style as well as substance. In Germany, Scholz deliberately styled himself as the incumbent. He wanted to be a symbol of continuity with Angela Merkel (in whose coalition he served). He was even photographed making Merkel's hallmark diamond-shaped hand gesture. But, however popular Merkel was when she was in office, voters didn't want continuity, they wanted change. In practice, this narrowed the political space for Scholz to argue that the system is broken, ceding this territory to the AfD. This is also about the stylistic element of politics. Some on the centre-left have responded to the headline-grabbing shock-and-awe of populists by rising above the fray and refusing to engage. This was how Joe Biden began his presidency, instructing the Justice Department to be slow in prosecuting Donald Trump for the insurrection, and ignoring the populist right. This proved impossible and ineffective. When Biden came out fighting, such this year's State of the Union, it bolstered support. We must be insurgents from the outset. In terms of substance, voters understand perfectly well that the British state is broken and in need of radical reform: Whitehall, delivery, public services, the responsibilities and powers of devolved governments, combined authorities, and local government. We need to be impatient, ceaseless reformers. Careful and precise in what fights we chose and why, but as soon as we look like we are defending the status quo of our politics and government, when voters know it does not work, we risk ceding the ground to the populist right. We cannot vacate the terrain of showing voters we are listening to and fighting for them. We need streetfighters who communicate clearly, understand delivery, and can be deployed as outriders. This requires an energetic, pugnacious and courageous communication style, a willingness to take risks and have the argument, not shirk it. It also requires effective engagement with new, fragmented media beyond mainstream outlets and savvy use of social media. 4. They deliver change that working people cannot see or feel. For governments to rebuild trust with working people, they must address visible problems and focus policy on their experience. In the United States, the Infrastructure Act, CHIPS Act, and Inflation Reduction Act represent the most significant legislative achievement of a US President in decades. But they aim at structural transformation, whose long-term benefits are relatively intangible in the short term. Labour has made a clear argument about the need to focus on the long-term and end sticking plaster politics. This is right and vital in managing the public's expectations. However, voters must also experience improvements in their material and physical environments. They want tangible things that make a difference: better pay and lower bills, safer streets and cleaner parks, better roads with fewer potholes, a doctor or dentist they can see when they need one. Politics starts with the local, on people's streets and local areas, so we must focus on the things that people see and feel in their own lives. The closer we get to the next election, the more important those will become. That requires a constant balancing between governing for the long-term, to demonstrate we will not duck hard decisions like the Tories, without neglecting the political imperative for short-term wins. Four ways centre-left governments beat the populist right 1. Level with the public with an honesty that takes people off guard. Working people understand that in politics, as in life, there are few quick or easy wins. They do not expect to be mollycoddled. They want to be treated with honesty and respect. There is much greater appetite for hearing hard-truths than politicians often suppose. Hard truth's should be at the core of Labour's message. The country is in a terrible mess. Labour must keep making a virtue of the fact it will not lie to voters or make promises it can't keep, and that it will be slow and painful to drag ourselves out of this mess. But Labour has a plan, and things will slowly get better. When we're inevitably attacked because things aren't improving fast enough, we must call out gimmicks and point out that gimmicks got us into this mess in the first place. 2. Tell our own story of us-versus-them. Most voters think all politicians are the same: 'them' not 'us'. Centre-left governments need their own version of this story: the 'us' is the working people of Britain and their Labour government prepared to tell hard truths and do hard yards to tackle big problems. The 'them' are dishonest Tory con merchants and clowns who got the country into this mess – with lies and broken promises – and even profited from it. They are the villains of this story and working people are the heroes. We must constantly demonstrate that a Labour government serves working people. This will be difficult. Politicians must tell stories and deliver arguments that focus on experience. We cannot settle for abstract, structural logic against the populist right's more concrete, linear reasoning. For instance, on immigration, instead of explaining the complexity of the problem or reducing it to economics, we must own the language of control, jobs, and houses. 3. Always be on the offensive. Attacking your opponents matters as much in government as in an election campaign or opposition. Done well, it enables you to define – and toxify – your opponents before they define themselves. After the election, the Conservatives will find themselves in a painful and prolonged debate, in which its relationship with Farage, probably as an MP, will become existential. While they are distracted, Labour quickly cement their culpability for Britain's ills in voters' minds. This is what the Conservatives did in the summer of 2010. While Labour was debating its future, the Conservatives ruthlessly and relentlessly pinned the blame for the financial crisis on Labour. The starting point must be to endorse the depth of the disillusionment, even rage, many feel. Voters aren't wrong to believe that politics has stopped serving working people. It has. Worse, it has started to serve itself. In the most egregious cases, politicians have used their office to enrich themselves and their friends. Voters have been let down by their leaders. The system has been rigged against working people. The people who did that are the Conservatives. In government, we must continue to be streetfighters in communication and campaigning, putting our opponents on the defensive. 4. Visibly occupy the issues that populists want to exploit. Populists draw strength from promoting ideas that have been insufficiently addressed by the current government. Attacking populists for talking about these issues or seeking to move the debate onto other matters plays into their hands. Voters see it as avoiding or downplaying their concerns. So Labour must visibly and proactively own the debate on issues the populist right seeks to exploit. Not as issues to be managed for narrow political reasons, but as core parts of Labour's own governing agenda. Tackling migration is not a defensive play Labour tactically deploys when under pressure, but a continual and core element of its programme, which Labour is proud to advance because it wants to make life better for working people. This means keeping Labour's governing programme disciplined and focused on voters' priorities. It also means always running a forward-looking agenda, offering an optimistic – but realistic – vision of a better future for working people.
