Starmer's Calculated Betrayal: How a Human Rights Lawyer Dismantles the ECHR
Keir Starmer knows exactly what he’s doing.
A unique danger emerges when a man who intimately understands the law decides to dismantle it. It is as dangerous as the crude authoritarianism of a demagogue, because it carries the veneer of legitimacy. It is dressed in the language of pragmatism, modernisation, and necessity. It is the danger of the lawyer who becomes the saboteur, the constitutional expert who becomes the constitutional vandal. This is the story of Keir Starmer and the European Convention on Human Rights.
In December 2025, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom stood before his European counterparts and called for the “modernisation” of the ECHR, the foundational human rights treaty that has governed European law for over seventy years. He framed this as a necessary step to tackle migration, to protect borders, to prevent the “far right” from exploiting human rights protections (Guardian, 2025). On the surface, it was a reasonable, even pragmatic argument. But beneath the surface lay something far more sinister: a calculated political gambit, a deliberate attempt to weaken the very legal safeguards that he, of all people, should be defending.
The irony is so profound it borders on the absurd. Keir Starmer is a former human rights lawyer. He spent three decades of his career defending the principles enshrined in the ECHR. He wrote a 938-page textbook on European human rights law. He worked at Doughty Street Chambers, one of the world’s most prestigious human rights law firms. He served as Director of Public Prosecutions, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service. He knows, with the utmost precision, exactly what the ECHR is, why it exists, and what happens when states begin to “reinterpret” it.
And yet, he is now the architect of its dismantling.
This is not a story of a leader naively misreading the political moment. This is the story of a calculated choice, made with full knowledge of the consequences, and of a man who has decided that electoral advantage is worth more than the rule of law. It is the story of how democracies corrode, not through the crude violence of authoritarians, but through the calculated compromises of moderates.
The Man Who Knew Better
To understand the magnitude of Starmer’s betrayal, one must first understand his background. When Starmer became a barrister in 1987, he specialised in criminal defence work on human rights matters, which was the core of his professional identity. He took silk as a Queen’s Counsel in 2002, a recognition of his expertise and standing in the field. From 2003 to 2008, he served as the human rights adviser to the Northern Ireland Policing Board, a role that required him to navigate the complexities of human rights law in one of the most fraught political stages in Europe (Guardian, 2025).
In 1999, Starmer co-authored a 938-page textbook on European human rights law. This was a technical, scholarly piece of work, a comprehensive guide to the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. The man who wrote this book understood the ECHR not as an abstract legal framework, but as a living, breathing system of protections, built over decades through case law and precedent. He understood why the convention was supranational, why it existed outside the reach of national governments, and why it was deliberately designed to resist political pressure.
When Starmer became Director of Public Prosecutions in 2008, he brought this expertise with him. As the head of the Crown Prosecution Service, he was responsible for criminal prosecutions across England and Wales. He oversaw cases involving human rights issues, cases where the ECHR was invoked to protect the vulnerable from state abuse. He worked closely with Richard Hermer, a fellow human rights barrister, and together they navigated the complex legal landscape where human rights protections intersected with the criminal justice system (Politico, 2025).
This is crucial context. Starmer did not come to the ECHR as a naive idealist, nor as a politician who had never engaged with its complexities. He came to it as an expert, as a man who had spent three decades understanding its intricacies, its strengths, and indeed, its limitations. He knew how states abuse “reinterpretation.” He had seen it happen. He understood the danger.
And yet, in October 2025, Starmer publicly stated that the UK needed to “look again at the interpretation” of the ECHR (Institute for Government, 2025). By December, he was calling for European leaders to “go further” in “modernising” the convention (Guardian, 2025). He was arguing that the ECHR needed to be “updated” to reflect “the challenges of the 21st century.” He was, in other words, using the exact language that authoritarian states use when they wish to weaken human rights protections without formally withdrawing from the treaty.
The Political Calculation
The question is not whether Starmer understands what he is doing. The question is why he is doing it. The answer lies in the electoral mathematics of British politics.
In May 2024, Starmer’s Labour Party won a landslide victory, with a majority of 174 seats in Parliament. It was a loveless landslide; people were just desperate for change and to remove the Conservatives. To many, Labour felt like the only viable option and their popularity began to plummet almost immediately because nothing changed. A resurgent Reform UK then began to race ahead in the polls. The small boats crisis continued unabated. The public’s anxiety about immigration, carefully stoked by years of right-wing media coverage, remained acute. Starmer faced a political dilemma. On the right, there was the regular talking point that the ECHR, somehow, was the obstacle. The narrative had been established: judges in Strasbourg were preventing Britain from deporting migrants, from protecting its borders, from taking back control. None of this is true. Starmer’s response, however, was to accept this narrative. Rather than challenging it, he decided to play along; that the best way to neutralise the threat from the right was to move further to the right himself, to adopt their language and accept their framing of the problem.
This calculation is evident in the testimony of cabinet sources quoted in The Guardian (2025). One source, familiar with cabinet-level discussions, explained the strategy bluntly: “They’re expecting a further Tory wipeout, so the next election will be Starmer v Farage. That’s the explicit strategy.” The source continued: “If you’re more on the left of that debate, if you’re David Lammy or Angela Rayner or Lisa Nandy, you don’t want to stick your hand up in cabinet and say, have we thought about where this is heading – because you’ll get a combination of Morgan McSweeney, John Healey and Pat McFadden saying, ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’” The message was clear: dissent on this issue was not tolerated, so the strategy was set.
Another cabinet source issued a warning that should have been heeded: “There is a risk you end up like Cameron” where you say you’re going to get reform “and you come back with not very much” (Guardian, 2025). This is a crucial observation. David Cameron went to Brussels in 2015 to renegotiate the terms of British EU membership. He came back with minimal concessions, claimed victory, and then lost the referendum. The lesson was clear: if you open a debate about leaving or reforming a supranational institution, and you fail to deliver meaningful change, you hand your opponents a victory. You prove that the system cannot be reformed from within, that the only solution is to leave it entirely.
And yet, Starmer proceeded with his gambit anyway. He knew the risks. He knew the history. He simply chose to ignore it.
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The Mechanism: What He Actually Wants to Do
To understand Starmer’s strategy, one must understand what “reinterpretation” actually means. It is not a neutral legal adjustment. It is a political tool designed to achieve a specific, predetermined outcome that is currently illegal under the ECHR: the deportation of asylum seekers to third countries.
The Supreme Court’s ruling on the Rwanda scheme provides the crucial evidence. In November 2023, the UK Supreme Court ruled that the government’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda was unlawful. The court found that Rwanda’s asylum processes were deficient, that there was a real risk that asylum seekers would be returned to countries where they faced persecution or torture. In other words, the plan violated Article 3 of the ECHR, which prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment. The court’s decision was definitive: under current ECHR jurisprudence, the Rwanda plan could not proceed (Supreme Court, 2023).
Starmer’s call to “reinterpret” the ECHR is a direct response to this legal barrier. He is not seeking to “modernise” the law in the abstract. He is seeking to dismantle the specific legal obstacle to a specific policy. He wants to narrow the interpretation of Article 3, to raise the threshold for what counts as “inhuman or degrading treatment,” so that he can proceed with deporting asylum seekers to third countries.
This is evident in the statements made by David Lammy, the Justice Secretary, at the Council of Europe summit in December 2025. Lammy argued that Article 3 could be “constrained to the most serious issues,” that the “threshold of ‘inhuman and degrading treatment’ must be constrained.” He suggested that higher thresholds could be applied to prison conditions or access to healthcare abroad (Politico, 2025). In other words, he was arguing that a country could deport someone to a place where they would face inadequate healthcare or harsh prison conditions, as long as it did not rise to the level of “torture.”
This is a fundamental weakening of one of the most important protections in the ECHR. Article 3 is an absolute right. It allows for no balancing, no margin of appreciation for states. It exists precisely to prevent governments from doing what Starmer wants to do: from deporting people to places where they will face abuse.
The Institute for Government (2025) has documented Starmer’s strategy in detail. Rather than formally amending the ECHR (which would require agreement from all 47 member states and would be politically impossible), Starmer intends to pass domestic legislation that will “reinterpret” how the ECHR applies in UK courts. Parliament would pass a statute setting out how Articles 3 and 8 are to be interpreted in immigration and asylum cases. This legislation would bind the Home Office and UK courts, effectively creating a parallel legal reality within the UK, one that diverges from the established jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights.
This is a calculated legal strategy, a workaround designed to weaken human rights protections while maintaining the appearance of compliance with the ECHR. It is precisely the kind of strategy that an expert in human rights law would devise. And Starmer, with his decades of experience, knows exactly how dangerous it is.
The Farage Trap: The Inevitable Escalation
Here is where Starmer’s gambit becomes truly dangerous. He is not just weakening the ECHR for his own purposes but inadvertently opening a door that others will walk through.
Farage and Reform UK have made their position clear: they want full withdrawal from the ECHR. The Conservatives, too, have called for withdrawal or a referendum on the issue. They have not accepted Starmer’s framing of “reinterpretation” as a solution. For them, it is merely a stepping stone.
Once Starmer has delegitimised the ECHR and framed it as an outdated obstacle to border control, he has validated the core argument of the far right. He has said, in effect: The ECHR is the problem. He has shifted the Overton window. What was once unthinkable – withdrawal from the convention – has become thinkable, even reasonable.
Inevitably, his gambit will fail. The EU and the Council of Europe are unlikely to agree to the kind of fundamental reinterpretation that Starmer is seeking. Alain Berset, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, has already made this clear. In response to Starmer’s push for reform, Berset stated: “I am not calling for reform of the European Convention on Human Rights, nor do I support any effort that would weaken it. It should never be used as a scapegoat in domestic political debates” (Berset, 2025).
When Starmer’s push for reinterpretation is rejected – and it will be – he will be left politically exposed. He will have identified a “problem,” but failed to deliver a solution. He will have said to the public: The ECHR is preventing us from deporting migrants, and then failed to change the ECHR. What will he do then?
This is where Farage steps in. Farage will say: You see? Reinterpretation doesn’t work. The only solution is withdrawal. We must leave the ECHR entirely. And because Starmer has already accepted the premise that the ECHR is the problem, because he has already delegitimised it, Farage’s argument will be far more persuasive than it would have been otherwise.
Starmer will have prepared the ground for his own political defeat and handed Farage the tools to dismantle human rights protections. He will have opened a door that, once opened, cannot be closed.
Britain Alone: The Strategic Cost of a Tactical Gamble
To understand the full magnitude of this miscalculation, one must understand Britain’s current strategic position. The United Kingdom is no longer embedded in the European Union’s legal and political frameworks. Brexit has left Britain isolated, outside the collective security arrangements that once protected it. The ECHR is now one of the last remaining external safeguards, one of the few supranational legal frameworks that still bind Britain to the European consensus on rights and the rule of law.
To weaken the ECHR now is an act of profound strategic idiocy. It signals to the world that Britain is drifting away from the liberal democratic order. It aligns Britain, unintentionally, with illiberal states like Hungary and Poland, which have been systematically dismantling human rights protections for years. It suggests that Britain, too, is moving in that direction.
The historical irony is almost too much to bear. A Labour government, led by a former human rights lawyer, is preparing the ground for the far right to dismantle human rights protections. A government that came to power promising to restore Britain’s standing in the world is instead accelerating Britain’s isolation and moral decline.
And for what? For a short-term political advantage. For the hope that by appearing tough on migration, Starmer can neutralise the threat from Reform UK, and for the calculation that because the left has nowhere else to go, they will vote for him regardless of what he does.
It is a deeply cynical gambit, and it is likely to fail.
The Tragedy of the Knowing Betrayal
What makes this moment particularly dangerous is that Starmer knows better. This is not a story of a leader naively misreading the moment, but of a man who understands the consequences of his actions and is choosing to proceed anyway. He cares more about his political career and staying in power than the dark roads the is embarking on.
In July 2025, The Guardian published a long-form investigation titled ‘Starmer v Starmer: why is the former human rights lawyer so cautious about defending human rights?’ The article documented the contradiction at the heart of Starmer’s premiership. It quoted human rights experts expressing dismay at his willingness to weaken protections. It quoted his own colleagues, including Richard Hermer, his Attorney General and a fellow human rights barrister, defending the ECHR and criticising those who wish to weaken it (Guardian, 2025).
And yet, Starmer persisted. He kept Hermer in post, perhaps as a way to “keep himself honest,” as one Labour strategist suggested. But he also continued to push for ECHR reinterpretation, to frame human rights as an obstacle rather than a safeguard, to move further and further to the right on migration.
This is not naivety, nor is it a misunderstanding of the issues. Starmer has decided that electoral advantage is worth more than the rule of law. He has decided that appealing to the right is more important than defending the vulnerable. He has decided that the left will vote for him regardless, so he can afford to abandon them on human rights.
It is a calculation that will prove catastrophically wrong. But it is a calculation that Starmer has made with his eyes wide open.
The Closing of the Door
Democracies do not usually fall to coups or violent revolutions. They fall gradually, through the erosion of norms and institutions, often through the compromises of moderates who believe they can manage the consequences of their actions.
Starmer is not a demagogue and not attempting to establish a dictatorship. He is simply trying to hold onto power. But in doing so, he is weakening the very institutions that protect democracy. He is delegitimising the rule of law. He is opening a door that others will walk through.
If Farage becomes Prime Minister – and if current trends continue, he will – he may inherit a weakened ECHR framework, and a legal and political landscape that has already accepted the premise that human rights protections are obstacles to sovereignty. He could inherit a public that has been convinced that the ECHR is the enemy. And he will complete what Starmer began.
The consequences will be profound. Once the ECHR is weakened or abandoned, there will be no external check on state power. There will be no supranational court to appeal to when the government abuses its authority. There will be no protection for asylum seekers, for minorities, for dissidents, for anyone who stands in the way of the strongman. This is the trajectory that Hungary and Poland have followed, and the path that other authoritarian states have taken. Britain, under Starmer’s leadership, is now readying the road for Farage to do the same.
The tragedy is that this did not have to happen. Starmer could have defended the ECHR. He could have argued that human rights protections are not obstacles to border control, but safeguards against abuse. He should have challenged the narrative that the far right has constructed and provided leadership, rather than capitulation.
But like so many other times since taking power, he chose to let the right define the terms of debate. He chose to weaken the very institutions that he spent thirty years defending, and to prepare the ground for his own political defeat and for the dismantling of human rights protections in Britain.
Appeasement does not begin with surrender. It begins when a leader, who knows the rules, convinces himself that they can be bent for political convenience – forgetting that others are waiting for the moment to snap them entirely.
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References
Berset, A. (2025) Statement on ECHR reform, Council of Europe, 9 December. Available at: https://www.coe.int/en/web/portal/-/statement-on-echr-reform [Accessed: 15 December 2025].
Guardian (2025) ‘Starmer v Starmer: why is the former human rights lawyer so cautious about defending human rights?’, The Guardian, 29 July. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jul/29/keir-starmer-labour-party-human-rights-mixed-record-international-law [Accessed: 15 December 2025].
Guardian (2025) ‘Starmer urges Europe’s leaders to curb ECHR to halt rise of far right’, The Guardian, 9 December. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/law/2025/dec/09/starmer-urges-europe-leaders-update-echr-halt-rise-far-right[Accessed: 15 December 2025].
Institute for Government (2025) ‘What does Keir Starmer mean by “looking again” at international law?’, Institute for Government, 2 October. Available at: https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/keir-starmer-ehcr-interpretation [Accessed: 15 December 2025].
Politico (2025) ‘’Lefty lawyer’ Keir Starmer to push for ECHR reform’, Politico, 18 June. Available at: https://www.politico.eu/article/lefty-keir-starmer-push-echr-reform-uk-tory-party-reform-richard-hermer-nigel-farage/[Accessed: 15 December 2025].
Politico (2025) ‘Frederiksen and Starmer push to water down Europe’s human rights treaty’, Politico, 9 December. Available at: https://www.politico.eu/article/denmark-mette-frederiksen-uk-keir-starmer-push-for-watering-down-echr-migration/ [Accessed: 15 December 2025].
Supreme Court (2023) ‘R (on the application of AAA and others) v Secretary of State for the Home Department’, UK Supreme Court, 15 November. Available at: https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2023-0093 [Accessed: 15 December 2025].