Sir Keir Starmer has announced a dramatic U-turn over international human rights laws which have been criticised for making it harder to deport asylum seekers.
The prime minister said the government will review the way British courts apply the controversial European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), which could mean asylum seekers are no longer able to avoid being sent back to their home country by claiming they could face torture as a result.
And they may be barred from demanding the right to stay in the UK on the grounds that it would separate them from their families.
The announcement marks another major policy reversal by Sir Keir, a former human rights lawyer, who has defended the ECHR in the past and comes as the prime minister steps up his attacks on Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, dubbing the small boats he is trying to stop crossing the English Channel “Farage boats”.
In an interview with the BBC, Sir Keir denied he is “tearing up” the ECHR but stated: “We need to look again at the interpretation of some of these provisions and we have already begun to do that work in some of our domestic legislation.”
He said the review concerns articles three and eight of the ECHR concerning “cruel and inhumane treatment” in an asylum seeker’s home country and the “right to a family life”.
The government is also reviewing other conventions relating to “refugees, torture and children’s rights”, he said.
“All international instruments have to be applied in circumstances as they are now,” the prime minister said. “We are seeing mass migration in a way we have not seen in previous years. Those genuinely fleeing persecution should be afforded asylum – that is a compassionate act, but we need to look again at the interpretation of some of those provisions – not tear them down but look at the interpretation.”
The move was backed by former Labour Home Secretary Jack Straw who told the Independent it was “very sensible”.
But Labour peer Shami Chakrabarti, the former director of Liberty, said: “Any debate about our fundamental rights and freedoms needs to begin with facts and law rather than political spin.As for the politics, we won’t achieve “decency” over “division” by trying to be Reform Lite.”
It comes after Sir Keir laid into Mr Farage’s claims yesterday, saying the Brexiteer had been “wrong” to claim that leaving the European Union would make no difference to migration policy, pointing to the Dublin Convention that allowed pre-Brexit Britain to return some asylum seekers to the continent.
Sir Keir told GB News: “I would gently point out to Nigel 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, in many senses, that are coming across the Channel.”
The decision to review legislation is a major victory for new home secretary Shabana Mahmood, the Independent understands, who has been lobbying for such action since her appointment.
But it is understood that Ms Mahmood had been concerned by the influence of attorney general Lord Hermer, who is very close to the prime minister and is strongly opposed to watering down these rights or changing the law.
A source close to her told The Independent: “She will know if she is successful or screwed on this by Christmas. But the prime minister hasn’t taken anything off the table yet, which is good. It is absolutely necessary to change the law on these four items.”
It came after the prime minister’s speech at Labour’s conference in Liverpool, in which he took the fight to Reform UK and said Nigel Farage, who advocates leaving the ECHR altogether, does not believe in Britain.
Kemi Badenoch is also expected to use the Conservative Party’s annual conference in Manchester to call for Britain to leave the ECHR.
Ministers have previously promised to review how human rights law is applied to immigration after a series of cases, including one in which an Albanian man was able to remain in Britain partly because of his young son’s aversion to foreign chicken nuggets.
The government’s review is focused on how the right to family life is applied.
The prime minister is under pressure to go further in his efforts to bring down the number of migrants arriving in Britain via small boats. Channel crossings are at record levels, with a single dinghy carrying 125 migrants into the UK on Saturday.
The number of migrant arrivals on small boats has topped 33,000 in 2025 so far, marking a record for this point in the year since data on Channel crossings was first reported in 2018. Saturday saw 895 people arrive in 12 boats.
Sir Keir followed his conference speech in Liverpool by insisting Reform leader Mr Farage and his supporters are not racist, despite branding the party’s immigration policy racist and immoral.
The PM told Sky News: “They’re concerned about things like our borders, they’re frustrated about the pace of change. I’m not for a moment suggesting that they are racist.”
And he insisted he was talking about a “particular policy”, claiming Reform’s plans would see migrants who live in the UK lawfully deported, saying “that to me would tear our country apart”.
Responding to the PM and Labour’s conference attacks on him, Mr Farage claimed Sir Keir had incited violence against Reform’s MPs and activists and is “unfit to be the prime minister of our country”.