The UK Conservative Party could campaign for the United Kingdom to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), if the deportation of migrants to Rwanda is blocked by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. According to The Telegraph, at least eight government ministers, along with other senior Tories, are prepared to back the move. Home Secretary Suella Braverman is the only minister who has publicly backed leaving the convention, saying so last October:
I don’t think we need to be subject to an institution born out of the post-war era, which is a bit analogue in the way that it operates, which has centralised power, which is distant and which is politicised, which is pursuing an agenda which is at odds with our politics and our values.
A growing number of Tories are angry with European interference, most sensationalized recently when a European court judge last year stopped the first flight to Rwanda, with migrants on board. The government then hit another stumbling block, when the UK’s Court of Appeal ruled in June that the Rwanda Asylum Plan was unlawful. Under the plan, the African nation would receive £120 million (about €140) from the UK government in return for agreeing to house migrants who arrived illegally in Britain. Until now, however, no migrants have been resettled in Rwanda. There will now be an appeal in the UK’s Supreme Court in the autumn, but even if the ruling can be overturned, individual legal challenges in the Strasbourg-based court could further hinder deportations.
Despite Brexit in 2020, the UK is still a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights and therefore must abide by rulings made by the European Court of Human Rights (the international court of the Council of Europe), not the EU. Nearly all countries in Europe are members of the Council of Europe, except for Belarus and Russia, which withdrew last year after its invasion of Ukraine, and Vatican City, which has observer status.
A spokesman for the British government stated that “the government has been clear that it will abide by its international treaty obligations.” Dodging the question of whether it is time to leave the European convention, Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick said on Wednesday:
We will do whatever is required, take whatever action is needed. But we’re very confident that the arrangements that we’ve put in place with Rwanda are in accordance with our international law obligations.
However, a minister, who is close to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, told The Telegraph that “the Government isn’t ruling it out.” Another minister, quoted by the BBC, said events could make it “inevitable” the Conservatives end up backing the abandonment of the convention.
This is not the first time that the UK government has vented its frustration at the Strasbourg court. “We are very clear about what we want, which is British judges making decisions in British courts,” former Prime Minister David Cameron told Parliament in 2015, complaining about European interference in British laws.
