UK needs to withdraw from ‘outdated’ ECHR after Rwanda ruling

The Court of Appeal ruling that the Conservative Party’s Rwanda asylum seeker deportation scheme is ‘unlawful’ has led to renewed calls for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to withdraw the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). This was the second time human rights laws have blocked the Rwanda plan, and Conservative MP Danny Kruger has claimed that if the UK fails to renegotiate with Strasbourg, the Government should ‘unilaterally withdraw’ from the international convention. The New Conservatives member explained: ‘The Rwanda judgment is very disappointing. Following the decision [last] week to abandon the planned Bill of Rights Bill, the Government should seek to renegotiate the ECHR with our allies or, failing that, unilaterally withdraw and replace the ECHR with a new human rights framework.’ He added that the Government should ‘immediately secure whatever changes to Rwanda’s asylum system are needed to satisfy the court, and urgently appeal the decision at the Supreme Court’. The UK signed the Convention in 1951, guaranteeing people’s fundamental human rights in law for the first time. Yet a new Express.co.uk poll has found almost three-quarters of readers agree with Mr Kruger that the UK should consider withdrawing.