NI Secretary Hilary ​Benn brands Kemi Badenoch's plans to quit the ECHR 'utterly irresponsible'

​Hilary Benn’s comments came after Kemi Badenoch announced that a future Tory government would pull the United Kingdom out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

The Conservative leader argues that quitting the treaty – alongside scrapping the Human Rights Act – is necessary for the UK to be able to exercise its sovereignty on issues such as immigration and protecting veterans from prosecution for incidents during the Troubles.

However, the party’s position was rubbished by Mr Benn in a series of social media posts – in which he said the Tories were backing a position that was once unthinkable.

He posted on X: “When the Northern Ireland Bill to implement the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) was debated in the House of Commons on 20 July 1998, the then Conservative opposition gave it its full support. T

“The GFA has resulted in over 27 years of peace after the trauma of the Troubles.

“And yet the Conservative party has now joined Reform in advocating a policy that could undermine the Good Friday Agreement - namely by proposing to withdraw the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights.

“Until recently, it was completely unthinkable that a party aspiring to govern the United Kingdom would countenance putting that Agreement at risk, given that ECHR membership is one of the GFA’s founding pillars.

“Or that they would seek to put the UK in the same group as Belarus and Russia as the only three countries in Europe which would not be signatories to the Convention. Utterly irresponsible.”

Former Labour minister Baroness Hoey responded to Mr Benn’s comments, pointing out that the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement “has been changed before”.

She accused the Labour minister of supporting the ending of cross community voting provisions in relation to the Windsor Framework despite unanimous opposition from unionist MLAS, adding “NI citizens will see through your spin”.