On October 6, a YouGov poll found that 57% of people identified immigration and asylum as the most important issue facing our country.

I am not surprised. During the 2024 general election, “stopping the boats” was the number one issue raised with me on the doorstep by constituents of Maidstone & Malling, in our frontier county of Kent.

Their concerns were not founded in intolerance or bigotry. They came from fair-minded Britons, who witness the unsustainable illegal entry of hundreds of migrants, day after day, while facing record taxes, overstretched public services, rising housing costs, and continued pressure on local infrastructure.

Yet despite repeated efforts to tackle the problem, successive governments have found their hands tied.

Policies that command wide public support and Parliamentary backing are being blocked by rulings ultimately in the hands of judges, sitting in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.

In June, as Shadow Solicitor General, I was honoured to be appointed by the Leader of the Opposition to co-lead a major Conservative Party policy commission on sovereignty and legal reform.

I was working alongside Lord Wolfson KC, the Shadow Attorney General. Our review examined the UK’s future relationship with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the growing problem of judicial overreach.

Upon considering our 185-page report in September, the Shadow Cabinet drew a clear conclusion: if the United Kingdom wishes to regain full control of its borders, withdrawal from the Convention is an essential first step.

The ECHR is preventing us from deporting foreign criminals, it restricts our power to stop illegal immigration, and it exposes our veterans to endless legal claims for alleged actions undertaken in the defence of our nation.

Marlon Martins Dos Santos is one example: a convicted murderer and child rapist from Brazil, he arrived in the UK under a false identity in 2007.

British courts refused his extradition back to Brazil on the grounds that prison conditions there could breach the ECHR, under Article 3, which prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment.

Perhaps the turning point for me was in 2022. It related to our then government’s plan to send illegal migrants to another country to have their asylum claims processed — the Rwanda Plan.

Judges in Strasbourg, using their powers under the European Convention on Human Rights, halted the inaugural flight at the 11th hour. That single decision made it clear that the democratic will of the British people could be overruled by foreign judges, unaccountable to our electorate.

Critics claim that leaving the ECHR would endanger people’s rights, but I contend that this argument does not hold. There are considerable existing common law and statutory protections that cover the main ECHR rights.

We also remain a signatory to other instruments, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Safeguards against abuse of power by the executive also exist in the form of Judicial Review.

The fact that our Commonwealth friends in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand all uphold human rights without being signatories to the Convention, speaks for itself.

Leaving the ECHR is not a silver bullet for enabling Government to do anything it wants. This is because there are other legal constraints on Government in addition to the Convention.

But it certainly is a gateway condition for solving some of the major problems that we are facing today.

Withdrawal would have its complexities, but none of them would be legally insurmountable. Significant political capital will be needed to effect change, in addition to courage and principled determination.

Protecting our borders, our veterans and providing fairness, justice and prosperity are priorities. As a sovereign nation we must be able to make sovereign policy decisions without being blocked by a European Court.