Labour is following racist Reform UK in its scapegoating of migrants (Photo: Number 10)
Keir Starmer wants to rip up international law to make the lives of asylum seekers harder—and it easier to deport them.
He wants to reform the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in a bid to appease the right.
It came after Starmer blamed Reform UK leader Nigel Farage for refugees crossing the Channel in small boats, labelling them “Farage boats” due to the increasing number since Brexit.
Starmer told GB News, “I would gently point out to Farage and others that before we left the EU, we had a returns agreement with every country in the EU and he told the country it would make no difference if we left.
“He was wrong about that. These are ‘Farage boats’ coming across the Channel.”
And speaking after the Labour Party conference, the Labour leader said he was unhappy about how judges are interpreting conventions of human rights in their rulings on deportations.
He wants to stop asylum seekers blocking their deportation on the basis that they could be sent to worse prisons or healthcare systems.
Starmer cited Articles 3 and 8 of the ECHR—which ban torture and protect the right to private and family life.
He also pointed to the United Nation’s Refugee Convention, Torture Convention and Convention on the Rights of the Child as potential barriers.
It is just another sign that Labour is following far right Reform UK, tailing its scapegoating of migrants.
Reform UK shifts further to the right, and Labour follows. The far right party pledged last week to scrap indefinite leave to remain, denying hundreds of thousands of migrants the right to settle in Britain with rights.
And Labour home secretary Shabana Mahmood followed suit with plans to make it harder for migrants to apply for indefinite leave to remain.
And the impact of tougher laws on migrants is real. Safe and legal routes are shut down, forcing migrants to take dangerous ones. Just last week two women died while trying to cross the Channel in a makeshift boat that had 100 people crammed into it.
Sonya Sceats, chief executive of the charity Freedom from Torture, said, “Chipping away at Article 3 of the ECHR risks setting in train the destruction of the absolute ban on torture—the most appalling form of abuse—which Britain helped forge and champion over centuries.
“This isn’t who we are as a country.” She continued, “Caring people across Britain are horrified to see political parties scapegoating refugees as a pretext for rolling back rights that keep everyone safe from abuse.”
Racism first developed as a justification for enslavement
