As Jenrick gains support with Tory members to get in reach of Kemi Badenoch he’s being launched on by rival candidates for some of his choicier words on the ECHR. In a video released yesterday morning Jenrick said “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.” Quite the allegation to be fair…
The leadership hopeful was questioned by Mishal Husain for four grating minutes on the Today Programme about that statement. Jenrick argued he was just repeating Ben Wallace, who complained lsat year that the ECHR prevents the SAS from conducting raids on foreign soil, but doesn’t prevent a lethal drone strike:
“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.”
Not quite the same as terrorists getting set free by lawyers. Husain pushed him on the specifics several times: “You did say our special forces are killing rather than capturing terrorists, so you think or know that’s happening now?” His rivals have jumped on the statement. Jenrick gets a conference blowup – there’s still time for Cleverly and Tugendhat…
Speaking to Adam Boulton on Times Radio about kicking the Golders Green suspect, Heidi Alexander said:
“I thought that if I was in the shoes of that police officer, then if I’m honest, given the situation, and the fact that he had a backpack on his back, and they were worried about whether that might go off, I could, if I was a police officer, frankly, I could see myself having taken similar action.”