𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Reform and the Conservatives would let migrants “drown in the water”, Labour’s Attorney General has claimed. Lord Hermer claimed Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch’s parties would not take a “British” approach to the Channel migrant crisis.

He also suggested Labour’s plan was “starting to be pretty effective in dealing with small boats”. But the Tories hit back calling his comments a “disgraceful slur”. Speaking to the BBC’s Political Thinking podcast, Lord Hermer questioned what the two parties would do instead, to which the host Nick Robinson said: “They say they’d round people up on the beaches and send them somewhere else.”

Lord Hermer replied: “I think what they mean by that is they let people drown in the water. And that is not a British way to deal with it. That is not commensurate with our values.

“The way to deal with it is the way that we’ve been dealing with it, and we’re going to carry rolling out further agreements, which is co-operation with the states through which people are travelling, through which people are launching boats.

“We do that through our membership of the Council of Europe.”

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: “It is a disgraceful slur to suggest that those wanting to end illegal small boat immigration are prepared to see migrants drown.

“The fact is that human rights lawyers like Hermer and Starmer are part of the problem – because they think the often tenuous human rights claims of illegal immigrants are more important than protecting our border.

“Let’s not forget, the illegal immigrants are leaving France – a safe country. Small boat crossings are 45% up since the election and 73,000 have crossed under Starmer – more than under any other Prime Minister.

“And Lord Hermer has the cheek to suggest this is acceptable. He is out of touch and a danger to our border security. We need to leave the ECHR so that all illegal immigrants can be deported within a week of arrival. Then the crossings would soon stop.

But Lord Hermer and his Labour allies are not willing to do this. So, the illegal immigrants will continue to flood in under Labour.”

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, alongside her continental counterparts, agreed changes to the way human rights laws are interpreted to potentially make it easier to boot out criminals and illegal migrants.

It included new interpretations of two clauses of the European Convention on Human Rights regularly used by lawyers to convince judges to block deportations of foreign crooks, failed asylum seekers and immigration offenders.

The new agreement states migrants should not be able to dodge deportation by claiming healthcare or prison facilities are worse in their own countries.

And it said that the ECHR must allow nation states to deport criminals and illegal migrants even if they have established a family in the country.

On the hugely controversial Article 8 protections – the right to a family life – it emphasises that this must be balanced against the public interest, including the “economic wellbeing of the country” and the duty of the state to prevent crime. National governments are better placed than an international court to assess this balance, the document said.

A group of nations – including the UK, Italy and Denmark – were concerned judges were interpreting human rights laws too expansively.

The Daily Express has backed calls to quit the ECHR to ensure Britain can boot out foreign criminals, failed asylum seekers and immigration offenders.

Lord Hermer insisted: “There is no tension between believing in human rights and having a steely determination to tackle small boats.”

And the Attorney General said Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood would use the new migrant pact to introduce new legislation on how Article 8 is applied in the UK.

He claimed it will give Ms Mahmood more “flexibility”.

He said: “I think you’re going to see Shabana rolling out in the coming weeks further reforms of the immigration system that are going to be consistent with what we agreed did Moldova.”