Keir Starmer is being urged by Labour MPs to overhaul human rights laws blocking the deportation of failed asylum seekers and foreign criminals. Backbenchers insist the Prime Minister should back changes to how the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is applied in British courts to take back “control” of the UK’s borders.
Their plea comes with Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, reviewing the rules following a string of controversial immigration tribunal rulings. Many of the verdicts have been based on the convention’s Article 8, which guarantees people “the right to respect for your family life”. In one extraordinary case, an Albanian criminal was allowed to stay in the UK by a tribunal, in part because his son would not eat foreign chicken nuggets.
The verdicts have raised concerns that judges are using increasingly creative interpretations of the ECHR to overturn deportation orders.
The Red Wall MPs are backing calls for the Government to issue guidance restricting how Article 8 can be applied in the courts.
Jonathan Brash, the MP for Hartlepool, said that ministers must “make sure the law is being applied in away that is in our interests as a nation”.
He told The Telegraph: “It’s a perfectly in order thing to do and to me it’s the right thing to do. They should be looking at all avenues.
“The asylum system is broken, immigration is far, far too high and they’re right to look at all the options to get the level of control we want.
“The British people want a Government they’ve elected to be able to decide asylum policy and for that policy to be enacted.”
He added that there were “a huge number of Labour MPs” who wanted to deliver for their voters with “stricter control on immigration and asylum”.
Mr Brash said he was not in favour of leaving the ECHR but it was “sensible” to tighten up its interpretation, as countries like Denmark have.
There is growing support among Labour ranks for an overhaul of how the ECHR is applied in asylum cases.
MPs will attend a briefing with a barrister on the issue in Parliament on Monday which has been organised by Dan Carden, the MP for Liverpool Walton.
Connor Naismith, the MP for Crewe and Nantwich, said recent rulings based on human rights rules were eroding voters’ trust in politicians.
He said: “People tell me that they don’t feel like their politicians can really change things … Artificial structures and outsourced decisions have limited our democracy and the Prime Minister is right to take this on.”
Jonathan Hinder, the MP for Pendle and Clitheroe, also backed the Home Secretary’s review into overhauling the human rights rules.
Writing for Politics.co.uk, he said: “Yvette Cooper is right to at least be considering how some of its articles are being applied in the courts.
“When the voters say ‘we want the government to reduce illegal migration’ it is entirely reasonable for them to think that the elected governments of these islands can deliver that.”
It comes after Jack Straw, a former Labour home secretary, last week urged Sir Keir to back away from the ECHR, questioning its ongoing “utility”.