Good morning. The Conservative party conference is starting in Manchester today – although you could be forgiven for thinking it’s another Reform UK conference, because Kemi Badenoch has already made two huge policy commitments that are straight out of the Nigel Farage manual.
First, on Friday night, she announced that the Tories would withdraw from the European convention on human rights.
And, last night, she said that if her party wins the election it will set up a new immigration taskforce, modelled on Donald Trump’s beefed-up Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), with the intention that it will deport 150,000 people who are in the UK illegally every year.
Given the way Ice is now operating in the US – like an autonomous militia, with masked goons violently abducting migrants, or anyone who looks like one, with little or no regard to due process – Guardian readers, and other progressives, may assume that this is about the worst idea imaginable. But this is where concerns about illegal immigration are pushing the policy debate for rightwing parties (Reform propose something similar, only they have not fleshed it out in so much detail), and Badenoch herself thinks this will prove popular.
In an interview with Ben Riley-Smith for the Telegraph, she was asked if the plan for an Ice-style removals force was a bit Trumpian. Badenoch replied:
I wouldn’t be surprised if he [Trump] loved it.
But what’s really important is that people in this country will like it.
Within the next few days we might find out.
Here is the agenda for the day.
8.30am: Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, is interviewed on Sky’s Sunday with Trevor Phillips.
9am: Kemi Badenoch is interviewed on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg.
9.30am: Badenoch is interviewed by Camilla Tominey on GB News.
1.30pm: James Cleverly, the shadow housing secretary and former home secretary and former foreign secretary, takes part in a Q&A at a Tony Blair Institute fringe.
2pm: The conference opens. The speakers include Kevin Hollinrake, the Conservative chair, Matthew Syed, the Sunday Times columnist who recently revealed that he has joined the Tories (having in the past tried to get elected to parliament as a Labour candidate), Russell Findlay, the Scottish Tory leader, and Darren Millar, the Welsh Tory leader.
2.45pm: Kemi Badenoch, the party leader, gives a speech that is expected to focus on the party’s plans to leave the European convention on human rights. Her main speech is on Wednesday.
3.15pm: Members hold a debate on the proposition that “freedom of speech is a fundamental pillar of democracy, and we need to create stronger protections for it in law”.
3.30pm: Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, takes part in a Q&A with Robert Colvile, the Centre for Policy Studies director, at a fringe meeting.
5.15pm: Philp speaks at a fringe meeting on policing.
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