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‘The Conservative Plan to Leave the ECHR Marks the Crossing of a Rubicon’

Brexit – although seldom mentioned in British political life – continues to influence policy on the right, writes Chris Grey

Conservative Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick talking about judges at the 2025 party conference
Photo: Gary Roberts Photography/Alamy

It was no great surprise that Kemi Badenoch announced that it was now Conservative policy for the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Many in her party have agitated for this for years and, with Reform UK already making the same proposal, it is one way for Badenoch to try to save her increasingly embattled leadership.

Yet surprising or not, it marked the crossing of a Rubicon.

This is not a fringe party as Reform still is, despite its current position in the opinion polls. This is the official opposition, and the party that has ruled the country for the majority of the years since the advent of modern democracy.

Free Speech and the Opportunistic Deceit of the Right

Right-wing culture warriors on both sides of the Atlantic cannot cloak their authoritarianism in a strident belief in free speech – the hypocrisy is striking, writes Jonathan Lis
Jonathan Lis

Political Economy: ‘The UK’s Political Class Has No Plausible Alternative to the Old Thatcherite Economic Model’

The US market is simply too big and too important for trading partners to risk losing access. And many countries, not least in Europe, are dependent on America for security guarantees. That has given Trump considerable coercive power which he has not been afraid to deploy indiscriminately against both allies and adversaries.
Simon Nixon