A Reform UK government would only allow civil servants who ‘believe’ in secure borders to work in a new ministry to tackle migration, Richard Tice announced today.
Unveiling a blueprint for leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), he vowed to drive through the plan by only allowing those who are committed to it to work on it.
The Reform deputy leader was speaking alongside Conservative former home secretary Suella Braverman and Tory peer Lord Frost as they united to call for the UK to quit the treaty.
Mrs Braverman, who also previously served as attorney general, yesterday published her ‘roadmap to freedom’ outlining how to leave the ECHR at the Prosperity Institute event.
The 50-page plan says the Convention has ‘mutated from a shield against tyranny into a sword against sovereignty’.
She also called for judges to be politically appointed in order to ensure they do not frustrate the will of government.
Mrs Braverman said: ‘I think there needs to be a much better restoration of ministerial power and accountability. So I would scrap the Judicial Appointments Committee and I would take it back to ministers.’
Meanwhile Mr Tice, who has previously hit out at the ‘incompetence’ of the Home Office, said he would only allow those who backed the plan to quit the ECHR to work on border security.
Reform UK deputy chairman Richard Tice said: ‘Bluntly, civil servants need to be told.’
Tory former home secretary Suella Braverman published a 50-page plan titled: ‘Why and How to Leave the ECHR: Roadmap to Freedom’
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which is the ultimate arbiter of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)
Speaking to reporters, he said: ‘Bluntly, civil servants need to be told.
‘If we have won the general election on a mandate to leave the ECHR it’s very simple: either you accept the mandate of the people and get stuck in, or frankly – in the nicest possible way – go and get a job somewhere else otherwise it’s not going to end well.’
Mr Tice said there should be a ‘department of immigration, a specific border force, who actually believe in the cause of secure borders’.
‘And on this particular issue, if you don’t believe in that cause then you’re probably not the right person for that job.
‘I think we’ve got to have a proper debate in this particular area about why should the people enacting it have to be neutral? Why do we accept that? It’s failed us, it’s let us down.
‘I want people who are going to enact and be completely committed to ensuring the will of the people.’
He also said Reform would be willing to rewrite the Good Friday Agreement to leave the ECHR without the support of Northern Ireland’s nationalist parties.
Nationalist politicians have warned that leaving the ECHR would breach the GFA, but Mr Tice said the agreement could be changed to remove references to the Convention.
Mrs Braverman added that a future government should be willing to hold a referendum on Northern Ireland leaving the UK if that was necessary to enact her policy.
She said: ‘If there needs to be a border poll, then the people should have a vote. I think unionists are confident about the position.
‘But ultimately, Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. It is not some disjointed, detached outpost subject to its own separate laws. If the UK leaves the European Convention on Human Rights, so must Northern Ireland.’
Mrs Braverman was also forced to dismiss speculation that she is planning to defect to Reform.
‘I’m not defecting,’ she said. ‘I’ve been elected as a Conservative Member of Parliament.’
But she did not deny that she had been approached about defecting by figures within Reform, a party which until recently counted her husband as a member.
She also took aim at Reform’s chairman, Zia Yusuf, who this summer accused her of being complicit in the cover up of the Afghan data leak.
Mrs Braverman said: ‘Zia Yusuf doesn’t have the experience of running national security or being in Cabinet or being elected. He’s not spoken with any authority about the subject. And he’s wrong on his accusations against me.’
