Robert Jenrick has pledged to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) if he is elected as leader of the Conservative Party.
He told activists the party will "die" unless it advocates leaving the ECHR.
The former Home Office minister told supporters at the party's annual conference the convention had made it "impossible to secure our borders”.
Adding that the idea of reforming the treaty was a "fantasy", he argued the issue was now one of "leave or remain".
MPs on the right of the Tory Party have increasingly blamed the convention for enabling failed asylum seekers to challenge their removal from the UK.
Jenrick said he was "not in favour of banging on about Europe", but the issue had become a "running sore" that could remain unresolved for "year after year".
As well as making it "impossible to secure our borders”, he claimed the treaty had stymied the removal of “dozens of terrorists” and "dangerous foreign criminals”.
The Tory hopeful added that Winston Churchill - who helped create the ECHR - would be "turning in his grave" if he saw how it had been twisted.
Robert Jenrick has committed to leaving the ECHR if he is elected Tory leaderPAHe claimed it had been “twisted and bent out of all shape by activist judges, by charities and NGOs who sought to misuse it from the 1970s onwards."
He said the ECHR had made it impossible for the UK to “deport terrorists who are here walking our streets, to remove dangerous foreign criminals like rapists and murderers and paedophiles who we need to get out of our country to protect the public”.
He is the only Tory hopeful who has committed to leaving the ECHR, an issue that among the right of the Tories and many Reform voters is very important.
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