The Conservative Party's manifesto was launched earlier this week, failing to mention the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
In their manifesto, the Tories stated that if they were to win, they would choose the UK’s border security over the “jurisdiction of a foreign court, including the European Court of Human Rights.”
Rishi Sunak failed to say he would be prepared to pull out of the ECHR if it failed to reform when challenged over the issue at the manifesto launch.
Penny Mordaunt has since however said that Britain must be prepared to leave the convention if it is not reformed.
She told the Telegraph that “as someone who campaigned to leave the EU, if you want to reform the practices of such institutions you have to be prepared to leave them. I would, as my record shows.”
Fellow right-wing Tories like Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick have called for the UK to quit the ECHR.
Asked her views on whether leaving the ECHR could be a game changer in the General Election, Mordaunt said the manifesto needed to be “quite radical” but “it doesn’t necessarily mean tearing up everything.”
She warned that the ECHR could face a Brexit-like "event" if it did not reform.
She said: "The lesson of Brexit is that if change is not a process, it becomes an event and I think that there needs to also be some reflection in these institutions if they want to continue as they are about how they are actually going about their business."
She added that the ECHR had made it hard for the government to deliver its Rwanda scheme and for the UK to protect its borders.
However, in 2022 during the Tory leadership race, she was asked whether she would take the UK out of the ECHR and she said she wouldn't.
Her position on the issue seems to have potentially changed.
With that in mind, would leaving the ECHR make you vote for the Tories? Have your say.
