Sir Keir Starmer has said he will look again at how courts apply human rights law in the UK in a bid to stop migrants crossing the Channel in small boats.
The prime minister said the government will re-examine how the law is applied in asylum cases regarding concerns about torture.
He said ministers should “look at issues like that again”, over the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) article 3 on protection from torture, and inhumane and degrading treatment.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think there’s a difference between someone being deported to summary execution, and someone who is simply going somewhere where they don’t have the same level of healthcare, or for that matter the same prison conditions.
“And therefore I do think we should look at issues like that again, I think there’s quite an appetite to look at issues like that again.”
It came after the prime minister’s speech at Labour’s conference in Liverpool, in which he took the fight to Reform UK and said Nigel Farage, who advocates leaving the ECHR altogether, does not believe in Britain.
Kemi Badenoch is also expected to use the Conservative Party’s annual conference in Manchester to call for Britain to leave the ECHR.
Ministers have previously promised to review how human rights law is applied to immigration after a series of cases, including one in which an Albanian man was able to remain in Britain partly because of his young son’s aversion to foreign chicken nuggets.
The government’s review is focused on how the right to family life is applied.
The prime minister is under pressure to go further in his efforts to bring down the number of migrants arriving in Britain via small boats. Channel crossings are at record levels, with a single dinghy carrying 125 migrants into the UK on Saturday.
The number of migrant arrivals on small boats has topped 33,000 in 2025 so far, marking a record for this point in the year since data on Channel crossings was first reported in 2018. Saturday saw 895 people arrive in 12 boats.
Sir Keir followed his conference speech in Liverpool by insisting Reform leader Mr Farage and his supporters are not racist, despite branding the party’s immigration policy racist and immoral.
The PM told Sky News: “They’re concerned about things like our borders, they’re frustrated about the pace of change. I’m not for a moment suggesting that they are racist.”
And he insisted he was talking about a “particular policy”, claiming Reform’s plans would see migrants who live in the UK lawfully deported, saying “that to me would tear our country apart”.
Responding to the PM and Labour’s conference attacks on him, Mr Farage claimed Sir Keir had incited violence against Reform’s MPs and activists and is “unfit to be the prime minister of our country”.
