The migration deal with France shows the UK needs the ECHR
3 min read
We need to move on from the implausible idea, put forward by the same people who made false Brexit promises, that UK border security depends on us withdrawing from, or reforming, an international treaty.
The government’s “one-in, one-out” migration deal with France was approved by the European Commission this week. This is the first returns agreement the UK has secured with a European country since Brexit got rid of the last one. The Tories promised to negotiate a deal but never did; now, this government has done so. On a recent visit to Calais, it was clear from speaking to French officials and police that the UK-France relationship has improved immeasurably since last July, no doubt helping the UK to secure this agreement.
It is right that this deal must operate within the UK’s existing legal commitments, including the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the Refugee Convention. The process of selecting, detaining, and returning people to France must therefore comply with these rights protections. This goes without saying for the UK and France, who are fellow founding members of the Council of Europe. The same can be said for every other European country with which the UK is working to address a whole host of shared challenges, not just irregular migration. Even the Italian government is firmly committed to the ECHR.
The UK-France migration deal illustrates an important point: our European neighbours are more likely to help us confront shared challenges when we embrace our shared values, the ECHR being key. It is very hard to imagine that this deal could have happened if the UK had withdrawn from the ECHR, as Reform UK, and some in the Tory party, have been calling for. The equivalence of human rights protections in both countries is a key principle underpinning the agreement.
Even the Tories now appear to be rolling the pitch for a more ECHR-tolerant approach. Sir James Cleverly recently said that other signatories to the ECHR are “kicking out foreign criminals much more than we are," and suggested that the UK’s domestic laws are the problem, rather than the ECHR itself.
The Labour government already seems to have recognised this latter point, with the Immigration White Paper reviewing the way that the UK applies Article 8 of the ECHR (the right to family life) in immigration cases, for example. The UK-France deal will also require changes to be made to domestic UK laws before it can be implemented.
The agreement illustrates that meaningful international cooperation on migration and security depends not on weakening human rights protections, but on staying committed to them. We need to move on from the implausible idea that UK border security depends on us withdrawing from, or reforming, an international treaty. As this deal shows, the countries we need to work with are committed to the ECHR; we cannot protect the UK’s national interests if we become some kind of outlier in Europe, by joining the likes of Russia and Belarus, which are in Europe but outside the Convention.
Many of the people who are trying to tell you otherwise are the very same people who were behind the Brexit project. Then and now, they have no real idea of what their alternative would look like. Still less do they have any idea of what would be lost. Prejudicing our ability to secure deals with our European neighbours on matters of national importance is a pretty good reason not to tear up the current legal order. And staying true to our shared British and European values is another good reason, too.
Tony Vaughan is the Labour MP for Folkestone and Hythe and chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees
