sweeping changes<\/a> to legal rights for refugees. Most importantly, the changes will end the automatic path to settled status for refugees after five years. They will also remove state benefits from those who have the right to work and can support themselves.<\/p>\nWhy is the UK pushing for a change to the ECHR treaty now?<\/p>\n
In short, Starmer is attempting to face down strong pressure from the far right in the UK to withdraw completely from the ECHR treaty. Instead, he is calling for the treaty to be modernised in the hope that this will placate right-wing concerns, which have become more mainstream in the UK.<\/p>\n
In a joint article with the Danish leader, Mette Frederiksen, published in the UK\u2019s Guardian newspaper this week, Starmer argued that curbing the ECHR would be the best way to deter voters from supporting far-right political parties in Europe.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best way of fighting against the forces of hate and division, is to show that mainstream, progressive politics can fix this problem,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
According to analyst Susan Fratzke of the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), Starmer\u2019s stance also reflects broader concerns among European governments about the ECHR\u2019s impact on the removal of \u201cillegally present foreign nationals\u201d.<\/p>\n
Fratzke told Al Jazeera that these governments, including the UK and Denmark, believe that the ECHR, under its current interpretations, restricts their ability to carry out returns.<\/p>\n
She added that, under the ECHR, many officials perceive a challenge in distinguishing \u201cwho genuinely has a protection need and right to stay, and who doesn\u2019t\u201d.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, they argue that, over time, domestic courts and the European Court of Human Rights have \u201cwidened the definitions of some aspects of human rights law to such an extent that it makes it difficult to return people, even when there aren\u2019t truly serious human rights concerns present\u201d.<\/p>\n
Fratzke said Starmer and his counterparts want \u201cto return to a narrower core understanding of what constitutes a protection need on human rights grounds\u201d.<\/p>\n
Politically, this push comes amid a surge in popularity for the far right, especially the party Reform UK, which wants to withdraw from the ECHR.<\/p>\n
Fratzke said migration policy is very much being \u201cdriven by concerns about the strength of Reform and fears that it could dominate at the next elections\u201d.<\/p>\n
What would this mean for migrants and asylum seekers in the UK?<\/p>\n
Starmer\u2019s push to curb the ECHR could have significant consequences for people seeking asylum in the UK.<\/p>\n
If the UK and its European partners succeed in tightening the treaty\u2019s interpretations, the people most affected would be those who currently rely on Article 3, covering torture or inhuman treatment, or Article 8, which protects family life, to argue against removal.<\/p>\n
These safeguards could become harder to invoke, raising the likelihood of removals even in cases involving complex humanitarian or family circumstances.<\/p>\n
However, Fratzke said that the degree to which the ECHR currently prevents removals is often overstated. She said that appeals on human rights grounds do occur, typically under Article 3 or under Article 8, which protects family life, and that such appeals \u201ccan and have been used to delay returns\u201d.<\/p>\n
However, she said that \u201cfewer than 5 percent of successful appeals against returns have been on human rights grounds\u201d. Most deportation cases are not stopped by the ECHR, even though public debate and media coverage frequently suggest otherwise.<\/p>\n
According to Fratzke, \u201cthe public perception of the ECHR and the idea that it forms a barrier have outstripped reality and become the crux of the challenge in itself\u201d.<\/p>\n
What are the criticisms of Labour\u2019s approach to the ECHR?<\/p>\n
There are three main reasons that Starmer is facing criticism for his stance towards immigration and refugee rights.<\/p>\n
Undermining human rights<\/p>\n
Human rights groups and some Labour figures have warned that the prime minister\u2019s stance on the ECHR risks undermining fundamental protections that have been in place for decades.<\/p>\n
Major rights organisations, including Amnesty International UK, Freedom from Torture and Reprieve, have echoed that concern, arguing that carving out exceptions to Article 3 would erode one of the most fundamental guarantees in European human rights law.<\/p>\n
\u201cHuman rights were built for hard times, not rewrites when it suits the Government,\u201d Amnesty said in a statement on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cPushing to water down the European Convention on Human Rights on International Human Rights Day is a moral retreat, not a solution,\u201d it said. \u201cThe lives of real people depend on those protections, we must not sacrifice dignity for political convenience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Emulating the far right<\/p>\n
Several left-leaning Labour Party MPs have condemned the \u201cfar-right\u201d, \u201cracist\u201d approach of the British government\u2019s moves to adapt the Danish model.<\/p>\n
Last month, Nadia Whittome, Labour MP for Nottingham East, told BBC Radio 4 Today: \u201cThis is a dead end \u2013 morally, politically and electorally.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think these are policies of the far right,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone wants to see a Labour government flirting with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whittome argued that it would be a \u201cdangerous path\u201d to take and that some of the Danish policies, especially those around \u201cparallel societies\u201d, were \u201cundeniably racist\u201d.<\/p>\n
Clive Lewis, the MP for Norwich South, said: \u201cDenmark\u2019s Social Democrats have gone down what I would call a hardcore approach to immigration. They\u2019ve adopted many of the talking points of what we would call the far right.<\/p>\n
\u201cLabour does need to win back some Reform-leaning voters, but you can\u2019t do that at the cost of losing progressive votes,\u201d he added<\/p>\n
In October, Lucy Powell, who won the Labour deputy leadership contest, challenged Starmer to soften his stance on immigration. \u201cDivision and hate are on the rise,\u201d Powell said. \u201cDiscontent and disillusionment are widespread. We have this one big chance to show that progressive mainstream politics really can change people\u2019s lives for the better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reversing traditional Labour values<\/p>\n
Critics also say Starmer has moved away from the social justice messages which once shaped the Labour Party\u2019s approach to migration.<\/p>\n
Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UK\u2019s refugee and migrant rights director, said Labour was simply \u201creheating\u201d the previous Conservative government\u2019s rhetoric when it pledged tougher removals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis \u2018securitised\u2019 approach to asylum and immigration will simply deter and punish many of the people most in need of crossing borders, people who are therefore often most vulnerable to criminal exploitation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Fratzke said that instead of developing a tougher stance on human rights, governments should seek to balance deterrence with legal pathways and social protections.<\/p>\n
\u201cDeterrence is part of the picture,\u201d she said, \u201cbut the question is how it is applied and alongside what other interventions.\u201d<\/p>\n
She noted that the UK is also exploring new legal pathways, including humanitarian sponsorship programmes and regulated routes from France, but cautioned that \u201cthey will need to find a balance between the two \u2026 to be effective\u201d.<\/p>\n
Is the far right a political threat to Labour in the UK?<\/p>\n
Yes, and this threat is the driving force behind Labour\u2019s approach, experts say.<\/p>\n
In July this year, the polling group YouGov said Reform UK, the far-right political party led by Nigel Farage, who spearheaded Brexit, would win an election<\/a> if one were held now. Much of its rise in popularity is down to its tough stance towards asylum seekers and on immigration generally.<\/p>\nReform\u2019s rise has unsettled both Labour and the former ruling Conservative Party, and has triggered a reckoning among liberals and centrists on migration policy. Starmer\u2019s government appears aware that migration is a key issue and that adopting a tougher stance may prevent a further rise in the popularity of parties like Reform.<\/p>\n
But Fratzke said fear of Reform has limited the government\u2019s room to explore more thoughtful migration policies, keeping the debate focused on enforcement and deterrence.<\/p>\n
Across Europe, similar pressures are shaping politics as centre and left-wing governments continue to toughen migration policies in a bid to slow far-right parties from gaining ground. This approach has had mixed effects, however, experts say.<\/p>\n
In countries such as Denmark, the Social Democrats have taken a much harder line on immigration and have managed to limit the rise of the far-right Danish People\u2019s Party for a period.<\/p>\n
But in places like France and Italy, similar tactics have helped normalise far-right ideas and have in fact contributed to the growing influence of parties such as Marine Le Pen\u2019s National Rally and Giorgia Meloni\u2019s Brothers of Italy, a 2023 report by the European Council on Foreign Relations showed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has urged European leaders to \u201cgo further\u201d in modernising the European Convention on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[591,936,59,57,58,937,50,938,25335,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-310430","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-europe","9":"tag-explainer","10":"tag-gb","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-greatbritain","13":"tag-human-rights","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-refugees","16":"tag-the-far-right","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}