Human rights lawyer PM blocked… by human rights law

Now it is being used as a template to halt removals from Britain. If France is not safe enough to receive migrants under human rights law, then nowhere is.

That is why the debate has to move beyond short-term fixes. Modern slavery claims, asylum appeals and Article 3 challenges will not disappear under Labour any more than they did under the Conservatives. The only way to restore legal certainty is for Britain to remove itself from the jurisdiction of Strasbourg altogether.

Leaving the ECHR is not a fringe slogan; it is the unavoidable first step towards reasserting border control. Without it, every policy is destined for the same fate as Starmer’s: a paper exercise shredded by late-night injunctions.

And this is where the irony turns bitter. Starmer the barrister once hailed the Human Rights Act as a “new way of thinking” about the law. He wrote that it had “enormous potential” to reshape Britain’s legal landscape. Now as Prime Minister, he is discovering that potential includes paralysing his own government. In practice, it means that immigration policy is not decided by Cabinet but by counsel in wigs, armed with well-thumbed Strasbourg precedents.

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The numbers pouring across the Channel make the urgency impossible to ignore. More than 5,400 arrivals since the returns scheme came into force, and over 31,000 so far this year — a 38 per cent rise on the same period last year. Yet every attempt at removal has been blocked, leaving Labour’s promise of grip in tatters. This is the same Prime Minister who insisted Britain would never leave the human rights treaty. It is now clear that by taking that option off the table, he has left himself boxed in.

In the end, it is the simplest of legal truths. You cannot legislate away Strasbourg, you cannot brief away Strasbourg, and you cannot out-lawyer Strasbourg. Starmer of all people should know this. Until Britain takes the decisive step of walking away from the ECHR, every border policy will be little more than a press release waiting for an injunction. And the cruel joke is that the Prime Minister most uniquely qualified to understand that reality is also the one least willing to confront it.

Well, that’s all for now. But until our next article, please stay tuned, stay informed, but most of all stay safe, and I’ll see you then.