Raab to turn heat up on Human Rights Act

‘Spicy’ reform will make it easier to kick out migrants who abuse law

MINISTERS are to set out ‘spicy’ reforms to the Human Rights Act next month to make it easier to deport failed asylum seekers and foreign criminals.

Justice Secretary Dominic Raab is expected to unveil the results of an independent review of the controversial legislation before Christmas.

Labour’s Human Rights Act incorporates rights set out in the European Convention on Human Rights in UK law.

It has survived in place despite Brexit, and has been blamed by ministers for frustrating attempts to remove those with no right to remain in this country. Downing Street said reforms would be designed to ‘make sure the Human Rights Act meets the needs of the society it serves and commands public confidence’.

Whitehall sources told the Daily Mail that use of the controversial ‘right to private and family life’ is set to be severely curtailed. One senior source said the reforms would be at the ‘spicy, vindaloo end of the menu’.

The right to family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights is regularly deployed by foreign criminals, including murderers and rapists, to avoid deportation from Britain after committing crimes here.

It is also deployed by some asylum seekers trying to establish the right to stay in the UK.

Mr Raab is expected to announce plans to also withdraw from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, meaning future human rights cases would be settled in London.

Speaking at the Conservative Party conference last month he said the UK’s Supreme Court ‘should be supreme in relation to human rights law’.

However, he is expected to stop short of withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights, despite some Tory MPs warning yesterday it was now essential. Lee Anderson, one of a group of MPs who held talks with Boris Johnson on the issue on Wednesday, said: ‘If we want to be a truly sovereign nation we should be setting our own legislation.’

Another present at the meeting said the PM told MPs to ‘watch this space’ when asked about reform of human rights laws.

The Nationality and Borders Bill will also curtail the right of asylum seekers to launch endless appeals. When it comes into force next year, people will have to present all their claims at the same time, without the further right to appeal.

A Home Office source said: ‘We are going to stop the endless appeals which drag things out for years. You will not be able to come back year after year with different claims on different grounds.’

PRITI Patel was crabby – and who could blame her? The Channel boats crisis that has engulfed her department for months had just become a full-blown humanitarian disaster.

The Home Secretary is hardly one of life’s cuddly bunnies but she had particular exasperated terseness as she answered MPs’ questions yesterday.

She seemed impatient to dispense with parliamentary duties and skedaddle back to the office as quickly as possible. Queries that irked her prompted a round of tongue-clicking, a roll of the eyes, a mutter under the breath.

Most of the time, she was bouncing on to her feet with a sharp reply before her questioner had even shut their mouth.

She was in the Commons to issue a statement following Wednesday’s tragedy, in which 27 people drowned in a doomed attempt to reach by inflatable boat Britain from France.

While the incident was ‘a dreadful shock,’ said Priti, it ‘was not a surprise’. She didn’t put it in quite these terms but she left the clear impression that she felt the bulk of the responsibility for the disaster lay with the French.

We heard that before arriving, Patel had ‘reached out’ to the French interior minister Gerald Darmanin to try to send British personnel to France to help patrol the coastline.

Judging by her irritated tone at the dispatch box, it had not been a productive call. ‘Non, madame’ was surely the refrain.

Responding for Labour was Nick Thomas-Symonds who seems to have had a bit of a makeover. The Shadow Home Secretary used to be one of Parliament’s scruffbags, but now: Smart shoes, decent suit, a few pounds lighter at the tummy. Had the spin docs taken him aside for a word?

Thomas-Symonds did not make trouble for his opposite number. Usually he can’t wait to jump down Priti’s throat and start accusing her of incompetence, ordering her to get a grip and the rest. But the migrant boat crisis is a tricky area for Labour.

Demanding the Government make it easier for migrants to get to Britain would irritate traditional supporters. On the other hand, insisting that Border Force gets tougher would upset the Hampstead luvvies. It’s an issue Starmer and his team seem happy to duck wherever they can.

Not so the Scot Nats. Martyn Day (Linlithgow) stroked his Captain Birdseye beard and demanded the Government allow more ‘safe routes’ – and forget that this would encourage even more people to come here.

Patel frowned. She found Day’s tone ‘disappointing.’ Perhaps, she hissed, it would be better if he turned up to more debates. He might develop a better grasp of the arguments. The grey hairs on the Conservative benches demanded Priti show some bite. They wanted more pushback against the boats. They wanted asylum applications processed offshore.

Sir Edward Leigh (Con, Gainsborough) urged Priti to crack down on the human rights lawyers preventing failed asylum applicants from being deported.

As he said this, Labour’s immigration spokesman Bambos Charalambous spluttered and shook his head. Mr Charalambous’s profession before entering politics? Funny, that: Lawyer.

AT the rear of the chamber, perusing the minister’s statement with a quizzical air, was a maskless Jeremy Corbyn (Ind, Islington N). He sat alone, isolated from his former colleagues. Having the Labour whip withdrawn has wounded him – and it shows.

For some time, the former leader bobbed up and down trying to catch the eye of Deputy Speaker Nigel Evans. When eventually called, he urged the Government to concentrate on the true causes of the migrant crisis: poverty, climate change, war. One or two of the old guard on the Labour benches gave their banished ex-leader’s remarks a dutiful ‘hear, hear!’

Towards the end, there was a complaint from Brendan O’Hara (SNP, Argyll) about the coverage of Wednesday’s tragedy by the BBC. Those who perished were referred to as ‘migrants’ on the News at Ten.

‘Migrants don’t drown,’ O’Hara declared. ‘People drown!’ He asked Patel to have a word with the Beeb about its language. Priti agreed, not entirely convincingly. But then there are more pressing issues currently at the top of her intray.