A lack of “conviction” on quititng the European Convention on Human Rights is hurting the Conservatives’ chance of regaining public trust, Suella Braverman has declared.
The former Home Secretary claimed the Conservatives are being dragged “kicking and screaming” to leave the convention.
Mrs Braverman argued the ECHR prevented her from deporting foreign terrorists during her time as Home Secretary.
And she said it is hindering attempts to stop Channel migrant crossings.
She told the Telegraph’s Planet Normal podcast: “The delay is a big problem. It demonstrates reluctance and a lack of conviction. That is a real concern. It feels as though the Conservative Party is being dragged kicking and screaming to this policy position, against its will.
“The big problem for the Conservative Party is credibility. People don’t believe us because we made promises for the best part of a decade to cut migration, to stop the boats, and we didn’t deliver on those promises.
“Saying things is falling things on deaf ears.
“They don’t believe us. The institutional political reluctance that the party seems to be demonstration on this particular policy doesn’t really help to resolve this credibility gap.”
Mrs Badenoch has ordered a review into whether the UK should quit the ECHR, while Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has long supported leaving it.
The Tory party leader is expected to set out her position at Conservative Party conference.
And Mrs Braverman became convinced Britain must leave the ECHR when last-minute ‘pyjama injunctions’ grounded the first deportation flight to Rwanda.
She said: “One by one, the migrants were taken off the plane because they were able to secure injunctions ultimately from the Strasbourg court and that scuppered the whole plane and it set off a whole spiral of legal cases and appeals and counter-appeals that ended in the whole scheme collapsing.
“There have been good-faith attempts to reform from within [the ECHR]. They’ve all failed.”
The former Home Secretary argued this became symptomatic of ECHR interventions in British politics.
She told Planet Normal: “The real problem was the right of illegal migrants, the rights of foreign paedophiles, the rights of foreign terrorists, become more important under the ECHR than the rights of the law-abiding British majority.
“I was unable to deport foreign terrorists and stop the boats because they were all able to rely on mainly Articles 3, 8 and other Articles of the European Convention.”
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood admitted that British judges take a “maximalist” approach to the European Convention on Human Rights.
Ms Mahmood warned the Strasbourg court it must consider reform or “there’s no hope really at all, for anybody”.
But she ruled out quitting the ECHR, amid calls to do so by Nigel Farage, Reform UK and the Conservatives.
Ms Mahmood said proposals over Article 8, the right to private and family life, will be brought forward later in the autumn and “may expand” beyond that.
She said: “Interestingly, if you talk to colleagues across Europe, there is a view that Britain is maybe more at the maximalist end of the spectrum when it comes to interpreting how we might comply with our international obligations.
“I think it’s perfectly fine for us to question whether we have drawn the line in the right place, and the work that the Home Secretary is doing has both, you know, fresh guidance, secondary legislation or primary legislation all on the table as potential options.
“But as I say, the Home Office have done their immigration White Paper, where this work was a part of that and they will be seeing more a little later in the autumn about progress on that front.”
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said it would be a “profound mistake” to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights.
Ministers plan to tighten the use of Article 8 of the ECHR, the right to private and family life, in immigration cases in the UK. They are also exploring rule changes on Article 3, the right to avoid torture or degrading treatment, it is understood.