NEW: Nick Thomas Symonds slaps down calls from Jack Straw and Lord Blunkett to look at decoupling or disapplying bits of ECHR Says it would join us with Belarus and Russia, and make it harder to tackle illegal migration @LBC https://t.co/bi0N7jt9SQ
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Jack Straw now calling to leave the ECHR, too. It really is amazing to see ideas we were pushing 2 years ago enter the mainstream like this https://t.co/liUeIhMiRY https://t.co/rq61a2gd4V
Former Home Secretary Jack Straw has called on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to “decouple” British law from the European Convention on Human Rights, arguing the treaty is being interpreted in ways Parliament never intended and is hampering deportations. Straw’s intervention aligns him with fellow Labour grandee Lord Blunkett, who has suggested suspending elements of the convention to address illegal migration. Both men say the current framework limits the government’s ability to remove failed asylum seekers. Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds dismissed the proposal in an interview with LBC, warning that quitting the convention would leave the UK alongside Belarus and Russia as the only European nations outside the pact and would make international cooperation on migration “significantly harder.” No 10 has also said it is not considering withdrawal.