A Tory minister has said a vote on Britain’s membership of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) could be their “best shot” at regalvanising their election chances.
New polling shows the Conservative Party is on track for a series of by-election defeats in key seats this month.
An Opinium survey, seen by The Daily Telegraph, shows that Labour is favoured to overturn Nadine Dorries’ 24,664 majority in Mid Bedfordshire, a seat that has been held by the Tories since 1931.
Labour also hopes to take Boris Johnson’s seat of Uxbridge & South Ruislip while the Lib Dems hope to win Somerton & Frome, which they held before 2015.
In a bid to win voters back, senior members of the Conservative Party are touting a vote on the ECHR after the government’s plan to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda was ruled unlawful by the Court of Appeal.
Reports in the i suggest the commitment. dubbed ‘Brexit part 2’, could get the party’s key supporter base out.
Britain would join a club with Belarus and Russia if it was to reject the ECHR.
Foreign secretary James Cleverly has previously said that would not be an enviable position to be in.
Related: Labour led by ‘right-wing, illiberal group’, senior MP says
