Minister's fight to preserve ECHR in Sunak's manifesto

A series of secret tapes have exposed the depth of the Tory civil war over the prospect of ditching the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

- DAVID MADDOX

Rishi Sunak appeared to confirm in his manifesto, published yesterday, that he would not rule out leaving or trying to reform the ECHR – which was inspired by Winston Churchill after the Second World War – by vowing to put border protection ahead of the edicts of foreign courts.

The manifesto states that “if we are forced to choose between our security and the jurisdiction of a foreign court, including the [European Court of Human Rights], we will always choose our security”. But a recording of Justice Secretary Alex Chalk speaking to Tory members at the Two Cities Conservatives reception on 20 February reveals he was opposed to the move.

Mr Chalk, who is also the lord chancellor and a lawyer, was defending the government’s Rwanda bill, designed to enable deportations to the African country, and made the case that the ECHR did not need amending.

The proposal to ditch the ECHR is being championed by Nigel Farage’s Reform party, which is splitting the right-wing vote in British politics. But it has also become the cause of a number of Tory MPs on the right, led by former home secretary Suella Braverman and former immigration minister Robert Jenrick.

Mr Chalk told the audience that leaving the ECHR could lead to a “situation where we smashed up international law”. He pointed to the UK as having “the second-largest legal sector in the world” and suggested that leaving the ECHR would amount to a “leap of senses” where “you’ve ripped everything up”.

This, he claimed, could cause a “whole lot of damage”, and that companies would be less inclined “to invest in our country”. He said that “to protect our borders, the trick is to produce a bill which [...] presses ourselves up against the window pane of international law, but which doesn’t ultimately breach it”.