Is there anyone in Britain who believes that Rishi Sunak will take us out of the European Convention on Human Rights? If there is then that person may also still think they got an absolute bargain when they paid a man in a pub £10,000 in cash to take ownership of Tower Bridge.
For the Prime Minister to airily imply that he is ready to take the UK out of the ECHR and the jurisdiction of its supervisory court in Strasbourg amounts to a new low point in his parlous handling of the small boats crisis.
The embarrassing truth is that a flailing, failing PM is fixated on just getting one plane off to Kigali
‘I do believe that border security and making sure that we can control illegal migration is more important than membership of a foreign court,’ he told the Sun, when pressed on the issue.
Yet he would not even confirm that a pledge to leave that court would feature in the Conservative election manifesto. And even if it did – which it won’t – there would still be paper tigers out there with more teeth. Because we already know that more than 100 Tory MPs in the ‘One Nation’ caucus are committed to blocking any such departure. And Sunak has unveiled no plan whatever to take the whip off any of them or to block them from being readopted as Tory candidates.
There is absolutely no sign of any re-run of the Boris Johnson-Dominic Cummings putsch against Brexit-blocking Tory MPs before the last election. So even in the vanishingly unlikely outcome of the Tories turning things around and winning a narrow majority at the election (don’t all laugh at once), there would still be a massive Commons majority against breaking free from the Strasbourg court.
The current Safety of Rwanda Bill had to be drafted in such a way as to at least arguably comply with European Convention undertakings because One Nation MPs were threatening to torpedo it should it not do so. They even put out a formal statement warning the government ‘against breaching the rule of law and its international obligations’.
So a Prime Minister who won’t include leaving the ECHR in a manifesto, won’t win the election anyway and couldn’t wield a majority for such a departure even if he did, is merely pretending that he might. Possibly this is part of a feeble attempt to put the European Court under pressure to wind its neck in when the inevitable appeals are lodged by those slated to be on the totemic first flight to Rwanda. If so then that is highly unlikely to be effective given that the electoral maths in Britain is pointing so heavily towards an imminent change of government anyway. The Strasbourg justices may even find themselves actively provoked into calling a useless bluff.
And remember, this is the same Rishi Sunak who has revealed his true intent through deeds, not words: he sacked Suella Braverman, his only senior minister to have openly spoken of her personal support for leaving the ECHR, while recruiting as Foreign Secretary a man who would not support that in a million years, in David Cameron.
It is also the same Rishi Sunak who set such store in a rapprochement with the European Commission, via his Windsor Framework. To depart from the ECHR would cause a mighty stink in Dublin and leave his relationship with president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen (to whom he has become ‘Dear Rishi’) in ruins.
It would also hugely damage his brand when it comes to future career opportunities as part of that superclass of former prime ministers of G7 countries. In such company a proven commitment to ‘the international rules-based order’ is a precondition of respectability, even when such an undertaking implies the collapse of national border control.
The embarrassing truth is that a flailing, failing PM is fixated on just getting one plane off to Kigali with at least a few dozen irregular migrants on board. There may indeed be such a flight before the election. But even if there is it won’t be sufficient to stop the boats. Or to bring back the votes.
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