Robert Jenrick, a leadership candidate for the Conservative Party in the UK, has defended his controversial claim that British special forces are killing terrorists instead of capturing them. Jenrick publicized his stance in a video promoting his bid for leadership which drew criticism from fellow Conservative politicians Tom Tugendhat and James Cleverly, who have both served in the military. The two lawmakers called Jenrick’s words misleading and misinformed. They reiterated their belief that the UK follows international humanitarian law and that British soldiers do not murder people.
Jenrick called for the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in the video and explained that special forces are resorting to killing terrorists as lawyers explain that if they are caught, the European court would set them free. The ECHR treaty safeguards the rights and freedoms of individuals in the countries signed up to it and it is supervised by the European Court of Human Rights, situated in Strasbourg, France.
Jenrick’s claims were rebutted on BBC Radio 4’s Today program when interviewed by journalist John Humphrys. Jenrick repeated the point made by former Defence Secretary Ben Wallace that human rights laws, including the ECHR, are creeping onto the battlefield and affecting the decisions made by army generals and military strategists. He acknowledged that the job of our troops was to capture rather than kill terrorists and highlighted that in some instances decisions might not be made as in using a drone to strike and take lethal action instead. He declined to go into further details about particular cases.
The position of the ECHR has been a long-standing topic of intense debate within the Conservative Party. Some Conservatives firmly believe that the ECHR is protecting terrorists and that it is not productive in handling failed asylum seekers to challenge their removal from the UK. Jenrick and former home secretary Suella Braverman are amongst those demanding the country to pull out from the treaty to avoid further such situations. At the Conservative party conference in Birmingham, other candidates who oppose this divisive viewpoint, and warn against legal wrangling similar to Brexit, have disagreed with this course of action
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