Kemi Badenoch is to launch an investigation into whether the UK should leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
In a speech on Friday, the Tory leader will say that if it is in the national interest, the country needed to leave the ECHR, a treaty which underpins human rights law.
She will add: “But I say that not because of any particular obsession with international law or with our treaty arrangements. I say that because for me, the most important thing is making our country safer, richer and fairer.”
The ECHR was a dividing issue in last year’s Conservative leadership election, with Mrs Badenoch’s rival Robert Jenrick championing the idea that Britain should pull out.
Critics of the treaty want to leave it because they believe it has been used to frustrate attempts to deport migrants from Britain.
Mrs Badenoch has stopped short of calling for the UK to leave, but in February, she suggested that the UK would “probably” have to withdraw from the convention if it stops the country from doing “what is right”.
Now the Conservative leader will say she is “increasingly of the view that we will need to leave, because I am yet to see a clear and coherent route to change within our current legal structures”.
But a “clear plan” and “full understanding” of the consequences of leaving are needed first, Mrs Badenoch will say as she announces a commission into the matter led by Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, the shadow attorney general.
Five questions will be asked by the investigation, branded a series of “tests” by Mrs Badenoch.
These include whether the UK can “lawfully remove foreign criminals and illegal migrants to their home country or elsewhere — even if they have family here or claim they could be at risk if sent home”, and if the Government can stop veterans being “pursued by vexatious legal attacks”.
The Commission will also look at whether British citizens receive preference ahead of migrants for “scarce public services”, if prison sentences “actually reflect Parliament’s intentions”, and how to prevent “endless legal challenges” to planning applications.
Mrs Badenoch will say that the “system must change” if her investigation “makes clear that these tests cannot be passed under the current system”.
She will add: “If international treaties, including the European Convention, block us and there is no realistic prospect of changing them, then we leave them. No hesitation. No apology.”
The Conservative leader will set out whether she plans to leave the ECHR at the Tory conference in October, when the investigation will report back.
Elsewhere, the head of the Council of Europe warned that rising migration may result in changes to how the ECHR operates.
Alain Berset, the secretary-general of the Council of Europe, told The Times: “We are witnessing a world where things are changing rapidly.
“It is accelerating. We see this, and it means that it is normal that we must also adapt to this. We need adaptation. We need discussion about the rules that we want to have, and there is no taboo.”
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