If you think Keir Starmer is rattled by Reform’s awkward-squad views on human rights, spare a thought for Kemi Badenoch. In a speech today obviously aimed at Conservative voters thinking of defecting to Nigel Farage with his unapologetic call to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), she will announce that the Tories too are indeed deeply unsatisfied with the convention, and are determined to do something about it.
So far so good. Listen further, however, and you see not so much as a position taken as an exercise in bet-hedging. Rather than going full-on for withdrawal, she is – you guessed it – setting up a committee, albeit one embodying the ‘sharpest legal minds’. One can see why she has chosen a non-committal managerialist solution like this. Unfortunately, there is every indication that Kemi’s scheme will turn out to be a damp squib.
On the ECHR, Kemi is caught between a rock and hard place
The first difficulty is that, while many issues lend themselves to committee-style compromise, ECHR membership is not one of them.
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