Kemi Badenoch to launch review into ECHR exit

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Kemi Badenoch is to launch a review into whether the UK should leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) – and set out plans to revive a Rwanda-style deportation scheme.

In a speech on Friday, the Conservative leader will announce a commission into how lawyers could be prevented from using international legislation to block government decisions on immigration.

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She will also announce plans to prevent people who arrive by small boat from claiming asylum and deport them to a third country.

It is unclear if this would be Rwanda or another location.

One of Labour’s first acts in government was to scrap the Tories’ Rwanda scheme, which would have deported illegal immigrations to the African nation for them to claim asylum there.

The plan was held up by a series of legal challenges and ultimately failed to get off the ground before the election, despite around £700m being spent on it, according to the Home Office.

The saga sparked a debate within the Tory party about whether the UK would need to leave the ECHR, which was established after the Second World War and sets out the rights and freedoms of people in the 46 countries signed up to it.

During the Conservative leadership race, Ms Badenoch said leaving the ECHR wasn’t a “silver bullet” and “not even the most radical thing that we probably will have to do” to control immigration.

It put her at odds with her rival Robert Jenrick, now the shadow justice secretary, who claimed the Tories would “die” if they did not back exiting the ECHR.