Kemi Badenoch insisted she could turn the Tories’ fortunes around, after setting out plans to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
The Conservative leader arrived for her party’s conference in Manchester saying “we’ve got a great story to tell”.
But her party has seen support collapse in opinion polls in recent months, consistently trailing third behind Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour.
Asked if she could turn things around for her party, she said: “Absolutely, and this week we’re going to be showing what our plan is.
“We’re the only party with a credible plan to deliver both a stronger economy and stronger borders.”
The announcement the party would leave the ECHR is an attempt to show they can be tough on tackling migration – the international convention has been blamed for making it harder to deport people from the UK.
Mr Farage has already committed Reform to leaving the ECHR if he wins power, and his party picked up another defection from the Conservatives as London Assembly Member for Havering and Redbridge Keith Prince jumped ship.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp insisted there was “a massive difference” between his party’s plan and Reform UK’s.
He told BBC Breakfast: “Reform have slogans. They shoot from the hip. They write down slogans on the back of a fag packet.”
He said the Conservatives have a “very, very carefully thought-out position” which had “taken months of legal work”.
“We know exactly what the implications are for things like the Belfast Good Friday Agreement, the Trade and Co-operation Agreement.
“We know exactly how we can then use the freedom outside the ECHR to get control of our borders.”
Mrs Badenoch’s decision followed the conclusion of a months-long review by shadow attorney general Baron Wolfson of Tredegar, which found the ECHR had limited the Government’s ability to address immigration issues, as well as policies in a host of other areas.
Mr Philp said the review, as well as “another detailed set of proposals” explaining how border security would be tightened, would be published on Sunday.
Lord Wolfson, who was commissioned to carry out the review by Mrs Badenoch in June, said that withdrawal from the ECHR was “the only feasible option” to gain full control of UK borders.
He said he did not believe the Good Friday Agreement, the UK-EU trade agreement, and the Windsor Framework negotiated to ease post-Brexit trading arrangements, were barriers to leaving the ECHR.
But critics say that quitting the treaty would jeopardise the Good Friday Agreement, which ended Northern Ireland’s Troubles, and would strip UK citizens of fundamental rights.
It’s time to leave the ECHR👇 pic.twitter.com/Tk3VuO5YaH
— Kemi Badenoch (@KemiBadenoch) October 4, 2025
Amnesty International UK’s chief executive Sacha Deshmukh said: “We should all be very cautious of politicians who try to take away the very rights that hold politicians themselves to account.
“Take this convention away and people will be vulnerable to the political whims of those who seek to undermine and deny them their rights.
“Scapegoating people fleeing persecution and other migrants as an excuse to gut this country’s human rights protections is not courageous, but cowardly.
“Stripping ordinary people of these protections will leave us all smaller, more divided, and less safe.”
Richard Atkinson, president of the Law Society of England and Wales, said: “The Conservative Party is putting political interest above the public good.
“Without the backstop of the ECHR, governments of whatever party will be able to erode our rights with no come-back.”
Sir Keir Starmer said this week that the Government was considering how Article 3 and Article 8 are interpreted.
The Prime Minister said international laws such as the ECHR would not be “torn down”, but that their legal interpretations would be reviewed in an effort to curb asylum claims.
Article 3 of the ECHR, on protection from torture and inhumane and degrading treatment, and Article 8, on the right to private and family life, have been used to halt deportation attempts.
Mrs Badenoch said on Friday: “I have not come to this decision lightly, but it is clear that it is necessary to protect our borders, our veterans, and our citizens.”
The issue became a dividing line between Mrs Badenoch and rival Robert Jenrick during last summer’s Conservative Party leadership election.
Mr Jenrick put withdrawing from the ECHR at the heart of his unsuccessful campaign, while Mrs Badenoch said the move would not be a “silver bullet” for tackling immigration.
London Assembly Member for Havering and Redbridge, Keith Prince AM, has today defected to Reform UK. 🇬🇧 pic.twitter.com/a4zhtUMk8r
— Reform UK (@reformparty_uk) October 4, 2025
In response to the pledge to leave the ECHR, a Labour Party spokesperson said: “Kemi Badenoch has adopted a policy she argued against in her own leadership campaign because she is too weak to stand up to her own party in the face of Reform.”
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said the move would do “nothing” to address issues with border control in the UK.
A Reform UK spokesman said: “The Conservatives had 14 years in government to leave the ECHR. Since then, it’s taken them 14 months to even decide what their policy is.
“Nobody trusts a single word they say any more. The Conservative Party is finished.”
