Kemi Badenoch calls in top lawyer to review leaving the ECHR
Kemi Badenoch has enlisted a senior barrister to review the legalities surrounding the a potential UK withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
In a speech on Friday the Tory leader will outline her instructions to the shadow attorney general, Lord Wolfson KC, to lead a commission on the UK’s membership of the Convention.
Lord Wolfson KC, a member of the prestigious One Essex Chambers, served as Minister of Justice in the House of Lords 2020-22.
A close source to Badenoch was reported to say, “[Badenoch] will take her time to build a proper, workable plan to tackle the issue of the courts subverting parliamentary democracy”.
In her speech on so-called warfare, Badenoch will stop short of explicitly stating that she would pull the UK out of the ECHR and will wait for the answers from Lord Wolfson’s KC review.
The senior lawyer is expected to provide his report at its party conference, held later this year.
Robert Jenrick, now shadow justice secretary and a potential future Tory leader, argued in September that his party would “die’ unless it left the ECHR.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage stated in April that the first thing he would do as Prime Minister would be to withdraw the UK from the ECHR.
While the Labour government has categorically ruled out leaving the Strasbourg-based court.
Tomorrow, Badenoch will also call for a ban on all asylum claims from those who arrive in the country illegally and a commitment to remove all those who come illegally and try to claim asylum.
Last month, the Home Office revealed that returns of illegal migrants had neared 30,000 since Labour gained power in 2024, a 12 per cent increase on the same period the year before.