Conservative infighting threatened to overshadow the Government’s asylum policy week after the Immigration Minister was told to “stick to the day job” for suggesting the UK could quit Europe’s human rights framework.
Senior Tory Sir Bob Neill told i that Robert Jenrick was departing from Government policy by suggesting Britain could leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to “stop the boats” crossing the Channel, while an ex-minister said such a move would be “cheap and mean”.
Meanwhile, Labour peer and former child refugee from the Holocaust Lord Dubbs said leaving the ECHR would be a “complete disaster”.
i understands Mr Jenrick’s comments on the ECHR are not being seen within the Government as a departure from collective policy but a signpost to his views on the next Tory manifesto potentially committing to quit the convention – which is a live debate in the party right now.
However, the comments came as the Government said it had “no plans” to leave the convention.
Sir Bob, who chairs the Commons Justice Committee told, said: “It’s not Government policy, it never has been.
“Ministers should stick to the day job and not speculate about what isn’t Government policy.”
He added that leaving would be “a completely foolish decision going against all history of the Conservative Party” and “would be a complete overreaction”.
It would leave the UK alone in Europe with Russia and Belarus while being incompatible with the Good Friday Agreement for peace in Northern Ireland, Sir Bob added.
Another Tory MP and former minister, who is on the right of the party, said: “I think it a bad idea to leave ECHR. It makes us look cheap and mean. Not very Global Britain.”
Lord Dubs told i: “It would be a sign the Government is not interested in human rights, a sign they would resort to any methods, including breaking our international agreements.”
However, in a signal of the split in the party over ECHR membership, “Red Wall” Tory MP Jonathan Gullis said he was “pleased to see the Immigration Minister confirm that he, the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister are willing to do whatever it takes to stop the boats”.
Mr Gullis added: “I hope that if the ECHR meddle any further in trying to prevent us from stopping the boats by getting flights to Rwanda we ignore it and then we put an offer to the people at the next general election to leave the ECHR.”
It came after Mr Jenrick was asked whether the UK could leave the ECHR to grip the Channel crisis.
He replied on Times Radio: “We will do whatever is required, take whatever necessary action is needed.”
Lubna Shuja, president of the Law Society of England and Wales, said: “This would be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, when the Government already has a perfectly good nutcracker it can use.”
She said if the Government wanted to address problems in the asylum system it could work to bring down the case backlog and address issues with the Illegal Migration Act, rather than “leaving an extremely successful international agreement designed to protect individual rights and support political stability”.
Mr Jenrick was also forced to disagree with the assessment of his party’s Deputy Chairman, Lee Anderson, that the Government had “failed” to stop migrants crossing the Channel in small boats.
Mr Anderson told GB News on Tuesday: “I’m not going to sit here and make excuses to anyone. This is out of control.
“We are in power at the moment, I’m the Deputy Chair of the Conservative Party. We are in Government and we have failed on this – there is no doubt about it.
“We have said we are going to fix it – it is a failure.”
Mr Jenrick told BBC Breakfast he disagreed with that part of Mr Anderson’s claims, arguing that “we’ve put in place a number of things in the course of the last few months which are already seeing dividends”.
He said the migrant crisis was an “incredibly complex international challenge” and proposed that the UK had the “most comprehensive plan of any European country to tackle this”.
A Home Office spokesman said: “The Illegal Migration Act allows us to achieve reform of our immigration system and stop the boats while still remaining party to the ECHR.
“We have always maintained that the UK and Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership is lawful, and the Court of Appeal have been clear that the policy of relocating asylum seekers to a safe third country for the processing of their claims is in line with the Refugee Convention.
“We have permission to appeal the Court of Appeal’s ruling in relation to Rwanda’s asylum system.
“The Government has no plans to leave the European Convention on Human Rights.”
This story has been updated.