Nothing can stop the Tory death spiral

We should give the Tories some credit. Of all the party conferences, the Tories are the stand-out performers in terms of policy announcements and ideas – some of which can be found on the Manifesto Project site. A lot of it is what we should have heard from Reform instead of Andrea Jenkyns’ tone-deaf caterwauling (and her singing). From Badenoch we certainly got some pleasing rhetoric about plans and blueprints.

The problem, though, is that Badenoch’s diagnosis is obsolete and her remedies are too timid. Basically, they’re selling us the image of a robust conservative party, but they’re not prepared to go far enough even to undo the damage their own party has inflicted upon us. 150,000 deportations a year, for instance, is nowhere close to serious. There are approaching 2m illegal immigrants in the UK and millions more unproductive migrants who will not be economically productive.

Then, of course, we get the obligatory bleating about the lack of integration. This where we know the Tories are not serious. You don’t get to complain about integration without first defining what acceptable integration looks like – and what measures you will take to expedite it. The Tories are silent on both counts here – and we know why. Defining integration means a principled rebuttal of the last thirty years of multiculturalism, and strongly authoritarian measures to force put an end to sectarianism – one of the most urgent threats to British security and cohesion. That tells us a lot about how far the Tories dare push the boat out.

As such, there is no reason to believe the party has changed. They’re doing what Tories always do in opposition. Toughening up rhetoric, but not policy. Moreover, Andy Street and Mel Stride distancing themselves from Robert Jenrick’s remarks tells us all we need to know. They’re still essentially Lib Dems who would rather sabotage the party again than allow any robust measures to be implemented. The Tory party would betray us again. There is no basis upon which to trust these people. They are still multiculturalist liberals.

If Reform has any sense, they would cannibalise most of the peripheral policies we heard from the Tories this week and go harder on immigration. That would put the Tories out of business by way of handing them their redundancy notice. Most Tory MPs would be happier serving as Lib Dems, and if you purged all the dross from the Tory party they’d only be a dozen or so left. They might as well defect and put the party out of its misery. A change of leadership doesn’t mask who they really are. We will see this in the coming weeks as more Tory grandees come out of the woodwork to complain about Badenoch’s plans to leave the ECHR. Where Badenoch leads, the party will not follow.

Ironically, though, this is the one issue the Tory “wets” are right about. We note that the examples of deportation appeals cited in the Tory BORDERS policy document come not from Strasbourg, but from British judges in British courts. The problems are closer to home and Badenoch’s diagnosis is a misdiagnosis. The evidence base for leaving the ECHR is flimsy.

If the object of this exercise is to restore British sovereingty then the right is barking up the wrong tree. The Windsor Framework (enshining EU CFR) is far more problematic, not least because the ECJ has greater powers of enforcement and more diplomatic clout. I think all this would dawn on a hypothetical 2029 Tory government and they would, wisely, back out of leaving the ECHR, but end up with egg on their faces having sold a false prospectus.

How a Reform government would handle this conundrum remains to be seen. Reform figures are of the Brexit ilk thus will not have a plan on how to handle the intricacies and complications because they’ll deny they exist from the outset – and will blunder into every ambush – and cause a constitutional crisis.

Meanwhile, there’s the domestic politics to contend with. This will not be a universally popular policy. There are a great many conservative minded people who do not support ECHR exit, and it’s not assured that a largely unvetted Reform party would be united on the issues. This could end up being a massive waste of political capital to not achieve very much – especially when the core of the problem vis-a-vis deportations lies much closer to home in the form of activist judges and the blob. This really does look like a fool’s errand.

I would’ve preferred a bit of statecraft from Badenoch on the matter of the ECHR. A principled defence can be made of the ECHR in that it serves as a minimum standard of human rights among like-minded democratic nations and is a means of applying diplomatic pressure on nations sliding towards authoritarianism. It is a diplomatic toolkit and not one we should dispense with so readily.

But instead of gushing praise of the ECHR, as the likes of Ellwood/Grieve are prone to, Britain should be a vocal critic of it in international circles, pushing the case for reform on the basis that judicial overreach is undermining the credibility of the institution, and making a mockery of the entire concept of human rights. The Council of Europe needs a wake-up call that it must reform or die.

Opponents will say that it’s impossible to reform the ECHR in that it requires unanimity, but this is one of the strengths of the ECHR. It wouldn’t be worth a damn if we could all change it on a whim. But this is where Britain needs a bit of self-confidence as the beacon of liberal democracy. We do not retain the ECHR to safeguard rights in Britain. We do it to safeguard rights in Europe and beyond. It is a system of Western European origin. It is OUR instrument of international influence. It’s just in need of repair.

In order to reform it, Britain can attempt reform by the normal channels in the expectation that such initiatives will be thwarted, but then move to a position of principled non-compliance – notifying the Council that in matter of immigration and repatriation, our view is that the system is malfunctioning, not working as intended, and observance will not resume until the Council agrees to a process of reform and modernisation (with the subtext that we are putting the entire system on notice).

I believe this should be our first port of call before embarking upon a process that could up-end the Northern Ireland settlement. It would at least show good faith, and would go a long way to preventing a wider disintegration of international norms that underpin intergovernmental relations. There are problems with international law, but it’s better to have these conventions than revert to a free-for-all.

Ultimately, what needs to change is the British establishment’s perception of these frameworks. We live in a lawyerocracy (for want of a better word) that regards international treaty law as sacrosanct – rather than a flexible code of conduct for international relations. The ECHR, for instance, only constrains what we do because we allow it to – but parliament is still sovereign in its own house. We can still assert the supremacy of parliament without ripping up treaties.

In a sense, the Tory wets are right in ripping up treaties and long standing conventions is unconservative – but at the same time, so is slavish devotion to the writ of foreign courts. It betrays a lack of faith in our own democratic institutions. The ECHR was never intended to prevent nation states from deciding their own border policies – and for as long as we allow it to do so, it will further undermine respect for human rights as an ideal, leading to the unravelling of an important part of the European peace architecture.

As such, we should remind the Council of Europe that Britain, while not a member of the EU, is still (give or take) a beacon of freedom in the world, and if their obstinacy and intransigence causes us to leave, then its own potency and prestige is irreparably damaged. As much as anything, reform should be attempted to establish a principle. If we establish that the system cannot be reformed, then it has no right to exist anyway. That is what legitimises departure.

In the final analysis, the Tories are moving on to the same pitch as Reform, but without the grounding of their conservative principles, shedding their reputation for statecraft, while doing nothing to assure anybody that the party has changed. If you’re in the market for cheap populism, you may as well go with the genuine article. If you’re in the market for a grown-up serious party with a realistic grasp of the issues, you’re still going to be politically homeless.