A Conservative party leadership candidate has said she would "eliminate" human rights law protecting people from torture and inhuman treatment.
Suella Braverman, who has made it into the second round of the contest to replace Boris Johnson, said Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights was tying the government's hands.
She argued that the government's policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda could be found illegal under the protections Britain committed to in 1953, and they would have to go.
Article 3 stipulates: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."
Her comments were described as “beyond the pale” by anti-torture campaigners who noted that the ban was rooted in “hundreds of years of British legal tradition”.
Ms Braverman told Sky News: "I've seen first hand, I've been in court fighting these cases for several years and I've seen what's happened with the Rwanda flight and the Rwanda policy.
"The reality is that the policy is vulnerable to claims based on the Human Rights Act or the European Convention [on human rights], namely article 3 claims and article 8 rights.
"We will simply not be able to remove in significant numbers those people coming across the Channel illegally in risky circumstances unless we eliminate those kinds of claims against our actions.
"That's why we do need to leave the European Convention on Human Rights."
Sonya Sceats, chief executive at the NGO Freedom from Torture, said: “In her deeply disturbing attack on the absolute ban on the use of torture, the Attorney General has gone beyond the pale.
“The prohibition of torture is rooted in hundreds of years of British legal tradition and was enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights under the guidance of Sir Winston Churchill himself.
“We know from our work rehabilitating survivors of torture how dangerous it is to play politics with this fundamental norm. While Suella Braverman has since been eliminated from the race, it is imperative that every Conservative leadership candidate puts blue water between themselves and this outrageous assault on this most basic of rules against human cruelty.”
Article 8, which was also cited by Ms Braverman, says people have a right to "private and family life, his home and his correspondence".
Her proposal comes as Dominic Raab, the justice secretary, failed to turn up to a human rights committee hearing to hear about the government's proposed British Bill of Rights.
That plan has been criticised by civil liberties campaigners for providing inadequate protection for certain rights, including freedom of speech.
The government is pushing ahead with its plan to deport asylum seekers arriving on British shores to Rwanda and telling them to claim asylum there.
But the first flight was stopped by an intervention in the court, which will rule on the legality of the policy in September when a new prime minister is in place.
Ms Braverman is one of six MPs to make it into the second round of the Tory leadership race. She was backed by 32 MPs, beating moderate favourite Tom Tugendhat and coming in behind Kemi Badenoch on 40 and Liz Truss on 50 votes. She is currently the government’s attorney general.
