Jenrick hits back at Tory rivals as he insists UK must leave human rights treaty

Tory leadership contender Robert Jenrick has said the UK must leave the European Convention on Human Rights because trying to reform it would take decades and be “doomed to failure”.

Mr Jenrick’s rivals have criticised his position on the international agreement, which he has blamed for blocking efforts to crack down on illegal immigration and deport foreign offenders.

The senior Tory also insisted that the promise of a binding cap on legal migration is necessary to help win back votes from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

The former immigration minister’s stance has been criticised by fellow Conservative leadership candidates Kemi Badenoch and James Cleverly, who suggested he was offering “easy answers” or “soundbites and quick fixes” which would not deliver results.

But Mr Jenrick told reporters in Westminster: “On immigration, I’ve been very, very clear to people about what my view is. I think that we begin to bring back the millions of voters we lost to Reform by immediately, this autumn, being clear about where we stand.

“On legal migration, that is a cap set by Parliament in the tens of thousands.

“On illegal migration… if you come here illegally, you’re detained, you’re removed within days either back to Albania or to a safe third country like Rwanda, whatever is available in the years ahead.

“To do that, I have come to the conclusion that we have to leave the European Convention on Human Rights. I don’t believe it’s reformable.”

There is “no consensus” within Europe about how to change it and “any attempt to reform it would be a project of decades”, he said.

Mr Jenrick added: “The public are demanding action on this, they are aghast at what is happening in the English Channel, and if we were lucky enough to re-enter government, the public would not give us a third chance if we then wasted years and years in an attempt to renegotiate our terms, which would be as doomed to fail as David Cameron’s attempt to renegotiate our membership of the European Union.”

On Monday, Mrs Badenoch, the bookmakers’ favourite to replace Rishi Sunak as Tory leader, said: “People who are throwing out numbers, saying we’ll leave the ECHR and so on, are giving you easy answers.

“That’s how we got in this mess in the first place.”

Mr Jenrick, who quit Mr Sunak’s government after pushing for tougher measures over the Rwanda asylum scheme, is seen as Mrs Badenoch’s closest rival for the job.

All the candidates know that immigration is a key battleground as the party attempts to win back voters from Reform.

Shadow home secretary Mr Cleverly declined to back leaving the ECHR, arguing it was the UK Supreme Court that ultimately prevented flights taking off to Rwanda rather than Strasbourg judges.

He said: “The simple fact is that if we try to grab shorthand answers and quick fixes, the British people will look at us and say ‘we’ve heard that before’.

“We need to be honest and open. We need to show where things are difficult and how they can be achieved.”

He said in office he had been “building an evidence base” by sending asylum seekers to Rwanda voluntarily to demonstrate it was safe.

“That is how we would have defeated the Supreme Court. That’s how we would have got the flights off the ground. Not by soundbites or quick fixes but by graft, but by delivery and focus,” Mr Cleverly said.

The six candidates – who also include Tom Tugendhat, Dame Priti Patel and Mel Stride – will be whittled down to four by the time of the Conservative conference at the end of the month.

After that, MPs will carry out further rounds of voting to select two final candidates for party members to choose between, with the result announced on November 2.