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At the start of the year, Rishi Sunak set out five priorities.

One of them was to pass new laws to stop small boats,

making sure that if you come to this country illegally,

you're detained and swiftly removed.

But it's not proving straightforward.

Last summer, a government plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda was stopped at the 11th hour

when the European Court of Human Rights issued an injunction.

That intervention didn't go down very well with some Conservative MPs.

And last week, when asked about it,

Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick refused to rule out withdrawing from the ECHR,

saying the government would do whatever is necessary ultimately to defend our borders.

So, what is the European Court on Human Rights? How does it work?

What would happen if we left it? And are we likely to? Step inside the briefing room and together we'll find out.

First, what is the ECHR? And where did it come from? Dr Ed Bates is Professor of Law at Leicester University,

an author of the evolution of the European Convention on Human Rights. Ed Bates, let's start with the absolute basics. What is the ECHR?

Well, the ECHR is an international agreement, a treaty opened for signature in 1950. There are 46 states to it today, but it started with just a dozen or so. It's the product of an international organization, the Council of Europe, which was established in 1949. And the ECHR establishes the European Court of Human Rights. That's based in Strasbourg in France.

It's a completely different institution then to the Court of Justice of the EU, which is based in

Luxembourg. People often confuse the two. Now, as we know, the UK has left the EU, so it's no

longer subject to the jurisdiction of the Luxembourg court. However, Brexit had no bearing on the UK's

membership of the ECHR, so the UK remained subject to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights.

How involved was the United Kingdom in the drafting of the original convention?

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