Conservative leadership candidate challenged over special forces claim
A controversial claim from Conservative leadership candidate and former Cabinet minister Robert Jenrick MP about the UK’s special forces and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has been a key talking point at the Conservative party conference today.
In a campaign video released yesterday, Mr Jenrick said that “our special forces are killing rather than capturing terrorists because our lawyers tell us that if they’re caught the European Court will set them free”.
It’s difficult for us to fact check many claims about national security because information is often classified, and Mr Jenrick hasn’t referenced any specific examples. We’ve asked Mr Jenrick for more information and will update this post if we receive a response.
But asked about his claim on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, Mr Jenrick pointed to an interview with former defence secretary Ben Wallace that was published in the Telegraph last year.
Mr Jenrick told the BBC: “The point I was making was one that our former defence secretary Ben Wallace has made, which is that our human rights apparatus including the ECHR is encroaching on the battlefield.”
Mr Jenrick continued: “Of course I’m not going to elaborate on particular cases because these things … these cases are not things that any minister or former minister can speak about.”
In his 2023 Telegraph interview, Mr Wallace said: “When we have a threat to the UK, this lunacy of being unable to render people across borders or arrest people in countries whose police forces are unacceptable, means that we are more often than not forced into taking lethal action than actually raiding and detaining.”
He added: “Getting permission from the host government is one thing. Getting an ECHR detention pathway is another thing. Somalia may say you can blow up al-Shabab because they’re our enemy as well, but if we go in and they surrender, we get told their detention pathway isn’t compliant. It’s a ridiculous catch-22 position, which doesn’t reflect the threat.
“There are a number of individuals who pose an imminent threat to the UK, who I would prefer to have captured, rather than deal with by a strike.”
Other Conservative leadership candidates including Tom Tugendhat MP and James Cleverly MP have criticised Mr Jenrick’s comments today and said he should justify the claims.
The deputy director general of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) defence think tank, Malcolm Chalmers, told Times Radio: “It’s a very dangerous comment to make, unless he has concrete evidence that this is taking place … That’s the sort of allegation which, if not proven, could put our forces at risk.”