British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has urged European leaders to “go further” in modernising the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), arguing that the treaty is no longer fit for purpose in an era of irregular migration and as far-right political parties gain influence across Europe.

On Wednesday, European countries agreed to begin the process of modernising the ECHR at a meeting of justice ministers in Strasbourg. Leaders are hoping to modify the treaty to make it easier to deport undocumented migrants.

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The United Kingdom is a leading voice in the charge to modernise the ECHR. The government says the ECHR, particularly its protections against torture and family separation, makes it too difficult to “control our borders to protect our democracies”.

But Starmer’s message marks a significant shift in his Labour Party’s traditional approach to human rights law and asylum policy.

Furthermore, migration experts and rights groups are warning that weakening ECHR protections could expose vulnerable people to serious harm.

What are Starmer and other European leaders pushing for?

Ahead of the Strasbourg meeting on Wednesday, Starmer urged European governments to agree to modernise the ECHR, arguing that current interpretations of the treaty make it too difficult for states to remove people who arrive irregularly, via routes which are not approved by the government.

This would most likely be achieved by carving out exceptions to provisions in the ECHR which protect specific rights, or changing the legal interpretation of these rights. The main articles that European leaders want to modernise are Article 3, which covers people fearing torture or inhuman treatment in their home countries, and Article 8, which protects family life and can be used by refugees to support family members being reunited.

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They say they need to make these changes if they have any hope of stemming the tide of migrant inflows.

In particular, the UK – which was one of the countries which drafted the ECHR in the wake of World War II – has grappled with a rising number of refugees and migrants arriving on small boats across the English Channel from France, and this has become a major point of concern among voters.

This year, Starmer reached a “one in one out” deal with France to send back one undocumented migrant without ties to the UK in return for keeping one who comes in on an approved route and who does have ties. However, so far, only a handful of people have been sent back and at least one has returned to the UK since being deported.

In October, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood dispatched officials to study the workings of the Danish immigration and asylum system, widely considered the toughest in Europe. The officials are reportedly looking to review British immigration rules on family reunion and limit refugees to a temporary stay.

Denmark has made family reunions much tougher, keeping the bar of conditions comparatively higher than in other European countries. Permanent residency is possible only after eight years under very strict criteria, including full-time employment.

Those who live in estates designated as “parallel societies”, where more than 50 percent of residents are from so-called “non-Western” backgrounds, are barred from being granted family reunion. This has been decried by rights groups as racist and constituting ethnic profiling.

In November, the UK announced plans for sweeping changes to legal rights for refugees. Most importantly, the changes will end the automatic path to settled status for refugees after five years. They will also remove state benefits from those who have the right to work and can support themselves.

Why is the UK pushing for a change to the ECHR treaty now?

In short, Starmer is attempting to face down strong pressure from the far right in the UK to withdraw completely from the ECHR treaty. Instead, he is calling for the treaty to be modernised in the hope that this will placate right-wing concerns, which have become more mainstream in the UK.

In a joint article with the Danish leader, Mette Frederiksen, published in the UK’s Guardian newspaper this week, Starmer argued that curbing the ECHR would be the best way to deter voters from supporting far-right political parties in Europe.

“The best way of fighting against the forces of hate and division, is to show that mainstream, progressive politics can fix this problem,” he wrote.

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According to analyst Susan Fratzke of the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), Starmer’s stance also reflects broader concerns among European governments about the ECHR’s impact on the removal of “illegally present foreign nationals”.

Fratzke told Al Jazeera that these governments, including the UK and Denmark, believe that the ECHR, under its current interpretations, restricts their ability to carry out returns.

She added that, under the ECHR, many officials perceive a challenge in distinguishing “who genuinely has a protection need and right to stay, and who doesn’t”.

Furthermore, they argue that, over time, domestic courts and the European Court of Human Rights have “widened the definitions of some aspects of human rights law to such an extent that it makes it difficult to return people, even when there aren’t truly serious human rights concerns present”.

Fratzke said Starmer and his counterparts want “to return to a narrower core understanding of what constitutes a protection need on human rights grounds”.

Politically, this push comes amid a surge in popularity for the far right, especially the party Reform UK, which wants to withdraw from the ECHR.

Fratzke said migration policy is very much being “driven by concerns about the strength of Reform and fears that it could dominate at the next elections”.

What would this mean for migrants and asylum seekers in the UK?

Starmer’s push to curb the ECHR could have significant consequences for people seeking asylum in the UK.

If the UK and its European partners succeed in tightening the treaty’s interpretations, the people most affected would be those who currently rely on Article 3, covering torture or inhuman treatment, or Article 8, which protects family life, to argue against removal.

These safeguards could become harder to invoke, raising the likelihood of removals even in cases involving complex humanitarian or family circumstances.

However, Fratzke said that the degree to which the ECHR currently prevents removals is often overstated. She said that appeals on human rights grounds do occur, typically under Article 3 or under Article 8, which protects family life, and that such appeals “can and have been used to delay returns”.

However, she said that “fewer than 5 percent of successful appeals against returns have been on human rights grounds”. Most deportation cases are not stopped by the ECHR, even though public debate and media coverage frequently suggest otherwise.

According to Fratzke, “the public perception of the ECHR and the idea that it forms a barrier have outstripped reality and become the crux of the challenge in itself”.

What are the criticisms of Labour’s approach to the ECHR?

There are three main reasons that Starmer is facing criticism for his stance towards immigration and refugee rights.

Undermining human rights

Human rights groups and some Labour figures have warned that the prime minister’s stance on the ECHR risks undermining fundamental protections that have been in place for decades.

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Major rights organisations, including Amnesty International UK, Freedom from Torture and Reprieve, have echoed that concern, arguing that carving out exceptions to Article 3 would erode one of the most fundamental guarantees in European human rights law.

“Human rights were built for hard times, not rewrites when it suits the Government,” Amnesty said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Pushing to water down the European Convention on Human Rights on International Human Rights Day is a moral retreat, not a solution,” it said. “The lives of real people depend on those protections, we must not sacrifice dignity for political convenience.”

Emulating the far right

Several left-leaning Labour Party MPs have condemned the “far-right”, “racist” approach of the British government’s moves to adapt the Danish model.

Last month, Nadia Whittome, Labour MP for Nottingham East, told BBC Radio 4 Today: “This is a dead end – morally, politically and electorally.

“I think these are policies of the far right,” she said. “I don’t think anyone wants to see a Labour government flirting with them.”

Whittome argued that it would be a “dangerous path” to take and that some of the Danish policies, especially those around “parallel societies”, were “undeniably racist”.

Clive Lewis, the MP for Norwich South, said: “Denmark’s Social Democrats have gone down what I would call a hardcore approach to immigration. They’ve adopted many of the talking points of what we would call the far right.

“Labour does need to win back some Reform-leaning voters, but you can’t do that at the cost of losing progressive votes,” he added

In October, Lucy Powell, who won the Labour deputy leadership contest, challenged Starmer to soften his stance on immigration. “Division and hate are on the rise,” Powell said. “Discontent and disillusionment are widespread. We have this one big chance to show that progressive mainstream politics really can change people’s lives for the better.”

Reversing traditional Labour values

Critics also say Starmer has moved away from the social justice messages which once shaped the Labour Party’s approach to migration.

Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UK’s refugee and migrant rights director, said Labour was simply “reheating” the previous Conservative government’s rhetoric when it pledged tougher removals.

“This ‘securitised’ approach to asylum and immigration will simply deter and punish many of the people most in need of crossing borders, people who are therefore often most vulnerable to criminal exploitation,” he said.

Fratzke said that instead of developing a tougher stance on human rights, governments should seek to balance deterrence with legal pathways and social protections.

“Deterrence is part of the picture,” she said, “but the question is how it is applied and alongside what other interventions.”

She noted that the UK is also exploring new legal pathways, including humanitarian sponsorship programmes and regulated routes from France, but cautioned that “they will need to find a balance between the two … to be effective”.

Is the far right a political threat to Labour in the UK?

Yes, and this threat is the driving force behind Labour’s approach, experts say.

In July this year, the polling group YouGov said Reform UK, the far-right political party led by Nigel Farage, who spearheaded Brexit, would win an election if one were held now. Much of its rise in popularity is down to its tough stance towards asylum seekers and on immigration generally.

Reform’s rise has unsettled both Labour and the former ruling Conservative Party, and has triggered a reckoning among liberals and centrists on migration policy. Starmer’s government appears aware that migration is a key issue and that adopting a tougher stance may prevent a further rise in the popularity of parties like Reform.

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But Fratzke said fear of Reform has limited the government’s room to explore more thoughtful migration policies, keeping the debate focused on enforcement and deterrence.

Across Europe, similar pressures are shaping politics as centre and left-wing governments continue to toughen migration policies in a bid to slow far-right parties from gaining ground. This approach has had mixed effects, however, experts say.

In countries such as Denmark, the Social Democrats have taken a much harder line on immigration and have managed to limit the rise of the far-right Danish People’s Party for a period.

But in places like France and Italy, similar tactics have helped normalise far-right ideas and have in fact contributed to the growing influence of parties such as Marine Le Pen’s National Rally and Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, a 2023 report by the European Council on Foreign Relations showed.