Labour’s radical reforms are strong — But ECHR exit would give them teeth

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He was dismissed as extreme. “Unnecessary.” “There are ways to make the ECHR work for us.” Even Kemi Badenoch, who went on to win that contest, kept her distance at the time. She is noticeably warmer now.

The reason is simple. The closer you look at Labour’s proposals, the clearer it becomes that Jenrick’s diagnosis was right all along.

Labour hopes to “rebalance” Article 8 – the right to family and private life – through tough new primary legislation. That will be a bruising fight, but it is probably achievable.

Article 3, however, is different. It is absolute. No balancing test, no public-interest override, no derogation. If a judge rules there is a “real risk” of torture or degrading treatment, removal becomes illegal. Full stop.

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It is Article 3 that has made it practically impossible to deport more than a handful of the 11,000 foreign national offenders currently in prison or on licence. It is Article 3 that killed the Rwanda scheme. And unless something fundamental changes, it is Article 3 that will kill every future “return hub” or “safe third country” agreement.

Denmark can operate on the edge because it never incorporated the Convention into domestic law in the same rigid way. Danish parliaments can, and do, pass laws that contradict Strasbourg jurisprudence, and Danish courts will apply Danish law. Britain cannot. Tony Blair’s 1998 Act ensured that Strasbourg rulings override domestic legislation.

Labour’s own document quietly admits the problem. Buried in the text, it identifies the “expanded interpretation of Article 3” as the single biggest obstacle to higher removal rates, and promises to seek “international reform” with Nordic partners.

Translation: we have no domestic lever to pull.

Which means this week’s announcement does something unexpected. Rather than sidelining the ECHR question, Labour’s reforms bring it to the forefront. The policy destination is now broadly agreed across the political spectrum: fewer spontaneous arrivals, rapid processing, temporary protection, swift removals. The argument is no longer about what to do, but how to make it legally possible.

And that is where Jenrick’s argument becomes unavoidable.

As he has long maintained, without leaving – or fundamentally renegotiating – the ECHR framework, Britain cannot fully take back control of its borders. Labour’s plan is radical, serious and overdue, but it still stops short of the one step that makes the Danish model actually work.

So the conversation we should now be having is not “Will Labour’s plan work?” It is: “How much longer are we prepared to let an unreformed 1950 treaty, incorporated in an unusually rigid way by Tony Blair, stop us doing what every voter has demanded for fifteen years?”

Everything else is noise.

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.