Overview

• At the Manchester conference, the Conservatives published a borders plan to repeal the Human Rights Act, quit the ECHR and deport 150,000 people a year, targeting 750,000 removals over five years with a new Removals Force and sweeping limits on asylum appeals, tribunals and legal aid.
• Kemi Badenoch said every Conservative candidate must support leaving the ECHR or be barred from standing, describing a unanimous shadow cabinet decision to enforce the pledge.
• A party‑commissioned review by Lord Wolfson concluded quitting the ECHR is the only feasible route to tighten border controls and said the Good Friday Agreement, the UK‑EU Trade and Co‑operation Agreement and the Windsor Framework are not barriers.
• Rights groups and legal bodies, including Amnesty International UK and the Law Society, condemned the plan as an erosion of protections, while former attorney general Dominic Grieve warned the strategy risks electoral damage and would not solve migration pressures.
• Badenoch signalled potential changes to other treaties such as the Refugee Convention, faced questions over where deportees would go, and highlighted tougher enforcement as Chris Philp vowed to remove foreign nationals expressing racial hatred, against a backdrop of just 9,115 enforced returns in the year to July 4, 2025.