Arguments over the role of the European convention on human rights in asylum policy express a tension between the politics of an ever-changing world and the principle of immutable humanitarian values.
When Sir Keir Starmer observes that population flows in 2025 are different to conditions 75 years ago, when the ECHR was drafted, and that governments have a duty to adapt to the change, he is responding to political reality.
The prime minister is right also to warn that if progressive governments are seen to deny that such a challenge exists, the initiative will be seized by demagogues who are intent on dismantling the whole apparatus of refugee rights.
The difficulty, as Sir Keir has found, lies in articulating a political solution that doesn’t end up parroting the arguments of populist wreckers and thereby advancing their agenda. This is the danger inherent in the prime minister’s ambition to “modernise” interpretations of ECHR articles relating to torture and entitlement to a family life.
The claim is that, while the humanitarian essence of those protections is sacrosanct, they are applied too loosely. They are invoked in cases of economic and social privation that, while grim, do not conform to the spirit of provisions drafted for cases of war and persecution. The kernel of the argument is that economic migrants are gaming human rights protection, using asylum as a way to circumvent legal border controls, and that it should be easier to deport such people. It is true that volumes of asylum claims have increased and that this is a function of globalisation. In the 1950s, it was much harder to cross continents in search of sanctuary – or in pursuit of a better life. The difference between economic and humanitarian flight has always been more blurred than advocates of draconian control maintain.
A common rhetorical device is to profess compassion for the “genuine” deserving refugee and then imply that such cases are few, relative to the majority who must, by extension, be bogus interlopers. That way, the asylum claims of people crossing the Channel in small boats are made to seem tenuous by default. The fact that they come by an illegal route is then used to portray them as criminals.
That is an administrative trap. If there were more legal channels, fewer asylum claimants would make illegal crossings. The validity of their claims, the wars and torture they fear if forced to return to the countries they flee, would be the same. But their status on arrival would be less easy to vilify.
This has been recognised by the government. A commitment to open safer legal routes does feature in Labour policy, albeit on a modest scale and never trumpeted because the primary message is tougher border controls. That imbalance points to a deeper flaw in the prime minister’s approach. Sir Keir’s claim when calling for reform of the ECHR is that adaptation to political pressure for migration control is a prerequisite for securing public consent for refugee protection. But the assertion of immutable values seems always to be deferred in favour of yet more expedient action.
The prime minister would be more convincing if he dwelt less on public discontent as proof that support for human rights protection is being lost and applied himself more to making – and winning – a principled argument.
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