Kemi Badenoch expected to announce plan to leave ECHR

Move to come if Conservatives win next election and is calculated to head off growing support for Reform UK

Kemi Badenoch is expected to announce a plan this weekend to leave the European convention on human rights (ECHR) if the Conservatives win the next election, as the party attempts to halt a loss of support to Reform UK.

The move will be seized on by political opponents as evidence the Tories have lurched to the right - Russia and Belarus are the only two other European countries that have opted out of the ECHR - while it could lose the party support from the political centre.