One of the things I hear time and again when I’m out speaking to residents in North West Essex is frustration that the system no longer seems to work for people who play by the rules. Whether it’s foreign criminals avoiding deportation, veterans being dragged through the courts, or major projects being delayed by endless legal wrangling, residents rightly ask: how did we end up here?
The answer is that too many of our laws now serve process over principle. They tie the hands of those elected to serve you. They allow a small but vocal group of campaigners and activist lawyers to override the will of the public and the decisions of Parliament. When international treaties get in the way of delivering what you’ve asked us to do, we must be prepared to leave them and replace them with arrangements that work for Britain.
That’s why last week the Conservative Party launched our Lawfare Commission: a panel of legal experts tasked with identifying the international rules and agreements that stop governments from doing their job. I’m clear that if these treaties are blocking change, we will take the difficult but necessary step of leaving them.
Too many dangerous individuals who should have been deported are still walking free in our country. They know how to game the system, supported by taxpayer-funded legal aid and activist lawyers. They remain in the very communities they’ve harmed, shielded by human rights laws that were never meant to protect criminals from justice.
This isn’t just a failure of policy — it’s a betrayal of the law-abiding majority. We are becoming a country where those who break the rules are protected, and those who follow them feel let down. We see it in how veterans are pursued in old age, and in how hard-working families in North West Essex are ignored while Westminster obsesses over process.
But the consequences of a system that prioritises ideology over common sense aren’t limited to the courts - they’re being felt across our economy too.
The Spending Review confirmed what many of us feared: this Labour Government is making things worse. Their tax raids and union-backed regulations are pushing people out of work and closing businesses. Instead of backing families and rewarding effort, they’re penalising aspiration — just when we need growth the most. New figures show 55,000 fewer people were in work this April, and another 109,000 are expected out of work this month.
