Top Tory once tipped as future PM warns they're becoming the 'nasty party' again
A former Tory minister once tipped to succeed Theresa May as PM has warned the Conservatives are at risk of being tarnished as the "nasty party" again.
David Lidington warned that most voters are "seriously repelled" by hardliners who want to see the UK join Russia and Belarus by withdrawing from human rights laws. He warned that talk of leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) would be "very offensive" to traditional Tory supporters.
Right-wingers are calling for the UK to withdraw in order to overcome hurdles with the Rwanda scheme and a draconian clampdown on asylum seekers. But Mr Lidington, who was viewed as Mrs May's de facto deputy and considered a likely future PM, says the wider public wouldn't support this.
The former justice secretary said Tory voters expect the Government to be "on the side of human rights at a time when human rights are under attack from our genuine ideological foes".
Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick suggested the UK could join Russia and Belarus outside the ECHR (Mark Thomas/REX/Shutterstock)He told The Observer: “In raw political terms, I think they are ignoring the risk that a lot of people who traditionally have voted Conservative would find such a move very offensive.”
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And Mr Lidington, who stood down as an MP in 2019, continued: “There will be a subsection of the electorate who will like this and want a hard line, however rational or irrational that policy is. But I think that they will be at least matched and probably exceeded by the number of people in seats, particularly suburban seats and home counties seats, who will be at best unimpressed and at worse seriously repelled by this kind of rhetoric and such a policy …
“The risk of us being tarnished then as the nasty party again, I think, becomes very real.”
Up to a third of the cabinet are reported to favour withdrawing from the EHCR and want this pledge to be at the heart of the next Tory manifesto. Immigration minister Robert Jenrick hinted on Wednesday that the Government could pull out of the agreement, which is ruled on by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
He said the Government would do "whatever is necessary" when pressed again about whether he could rule out withdrawing from the ECHR. The agreement is a Council of Europe convention, rather than a European Union one, so is not affected by Brexit.
Attempts by ministers to fly unauthorised migrants to Rwanda for deportation were grounded after an eleventh hour decision by a Strasbourg judge in June last year. The Rwanda plan continues to face a Supreme Court battle, and there is pressure within the Conservative Party to pull out of the ECHR to make it easier to address the situation.
Rishi Sunak has previously resisted calls to withdraw from the ECHR, but the weak PM could crumble in the face of Tory pressure. The possible move has been widely condemned by experts.
Law Society of England and Wales president Lubna Shuja said: "Leaving the ECHR would mean the UK would sit as an outlier in Europe, alongside only Russia and Belarus who are already outside of the Convention. This would be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, when the Government already has a perfectly good nutcracker it can use."
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