Sam Francis<\/span>Political reporter<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n Sir Keir Starmer has said his government will look again at international law to meet the challenge of “mass migration”.<\/p>\n The prime minister gave the clearest sign yet the government is planning a major overhaul on the use of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in immigration cases, but insisted he would not pull the UK out of existing treaties.<\/p>\n His comments came after his home secretary set out plans to tighten rules for migrants seeking indefinite leave to remain<\/a> during a Labour Party conference focused on how to beat an insurgent Reform UK.<\/p>\n Sir Keir told Radio 4’s Today Programme “we need to look again at the interpretation” of a wide range of international laws by UK courts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Sir Keir warned that laws must be “applied in the circumstances as they are now” before adding that countries were experiencing “mass migration in a way that we have not seen in previous years”.<\/p>\n To meet this new challenge “we need to look at again at the interpretation of some of these provisions, not tear them down”, he said.<\/p>\n On the issue of deportation, he was asked about the example of a Brazilian paedophile who successfully claimed he would be treated worse in a Brazilian prison than he would in a British prison.<\/p>\n The prime minister drew a line between deporting someone to “summary execution” and claims based on worse healthcare or prison conditions abroad.<\/p>\n “I believe that those genuinely fleeing persecution should be afforded asylum and that is a compassionate act,” he added.<\/p>\n Pressed for details about what was blocking deportations of foreign criminals, Sir Keir cited Articles 3 and 8 of the ECHR – which ban torture and protect the right to private and family life respectively.<\/p>\n “But it’s more than that,” he said, pointing to the UN’s Refugee Convention, Torture Convention and Convention on the Rights of the Child as potential barriers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Ministers were already exploring ways to tighten the interpretation of some aspects of the ECHR to crack down on immigration.<\/p>\n In May, the government’s immigration white paper promised legislation to “clarify” how the right to a family life in European human rights law should apply to immigration cases.<\/p>\n Before being made foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper ordered home officials to look into how courts<\/a> used laws that halted deportations on torture grounds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Sir Keir’s comments come after a Labour conference dominated by efforts to confront Reform UK<\/a>.<\/p>\n The prime minister used his keynote speech to cast Nigel Farage’s movement as practising the “politics of grievance” and to position Labour as the party of “tolerant, decent” patriotism. <\/p>\n He stopped short in the speech of repeating his attack on Reform’s deportation proposals as “racist”<\/a> but vowed to fight racist rhetoric “with everything we have”.<\/p>\n
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