The Conservative Party will “die” unless it proposes pulling Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), Robert Jenrick is set to claim on Monday.
Jenrick, a front-runner in the party’s leadership race, is expected to harden his stance on immigration in a speech at a rally at the Tory conference in Birmingham.
The contender will also warn that Nigel Farage’s party Reform UK will “grow and grow and condemn us to obscurity” unless the Tories regain trust on bringing down numbers.
This warning is the latest of Jenrick’s attempts to put the UK’s membership of the ECHR at the centre of his leadership contest.
Three other candidates competing to replace Rishi Sunak, Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat, have declined to explicitly call to leave the convention.
But Jenrick argues the ECHR, which defends universal human rights, is too limiting on the UK’s ability to deport those who arrive by Channel crossings.
In the speech today, Jenrick will point to both his promise to cap annual net migration at 100,000 and to leave the ECHR.
He will say: “Our party’s survival rests on restoring our credibility on immigration. If we continue to duck and dance around this question our party has no future.
“Despite what others might falsely claim, we’ve never had a legal cap on legal migration. Unless we introduce one – where no visas will be issued unless net migration is in the tens of thousands or lower – we will be powerless to end the cycle of broken promises. Anyone who is not prepared to commit to a specific cap just doesn’t understand the depth of public anger.
“I am not prepared to gamble the house on some five-year review process that may or may not see us doing what is obviously necessary. I have a plan ready now: leave the ECHR and introduce a legally binding cap on legal migration.
“The choice is clear, it’s leave or remain. In fact it’s more than that – it is leave or die. If we don’t do this now, we’ll never restore the public’s trust and there’s every chance that Reform will grow and grow and condemn us to obscurity.”
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