The Human Rights Case Against Sir Keir Starmer: A Legal Reckoning from the Ground Up, By Richard Miller (London)

Sir Keir Starmer, former Director of Public Prosecutions and current UK Prime Minister, presents himself as a principled defender of human rights. Yet critics increasingly argue that his legal philosophy — particularly his strong attachment to supranational human rights frameworks — has produced policies that weaken the protections of British citizens rather than strengthening them. Drawing on recent reporting by The Daily Sceptic and broader public debate in Britain, this article examines those claims through the lens of the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), raising difficult questions about how universal rights frameworks operate when translated into domestic governance.

This is not an allegation of personal malice or illegality. Rather, it is a critique of policy orientation — one rooted in conservative constitutional concerns about sovereignty, democratic accountability, and the purpose of human rights law itself.

Citizenship, Risk, and the Scope of Article 2

One controversy cited by critics concerns the case of Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, who was granted British citizenship through his mother's UK birth. Commentators sympathetic to immigration restriction argue that the decision illustrates an overly expansive approach to nationality law under the British Nationality Act 1981, and that past rhetoric attributed to Abd el-Fattah raises concerns about the importation of ideological hostility into Britain's civic space. These claims remain disputed and politically charged, but they raise broader questions about how states discharge their positive obligations under Article 2 of the ECHR — the right to life — which requires governments to take reasonable steps to protect citizens from foreseeable risks.

In Osman v United Kingdom (1998), the European Court of Human Rights held that states must act where authorities know or ought reasonably to know of real and immediate risks to life. Critics of current UK policy argue that immigration and asylum systems insufficiently integrate this precautionary logic, prioritising expansive humanitarian interpretations without equal attention to downstream social risk. Whether that critique withstands empirical scrutiny is debatable, but it reflects a growing unease among sections of the public that rights discourse is becoming detached from domestic security realities.

Border Policy and the Problem of Foreseeability

These concerns sharpen around irregular migration across the English Channel. Critics argue that successive governments — including Starmer's — have failed to deter unlawful entry, despite possessing legislative tools such as the Nationality and Borders Act 2022. Public concern has intensified following high-profile criminal cases involving recent migrants, with commentators arguing that even low-probability risks become ethically significant when policy frameworks systematically ignore foreseeability.

Under McCann v United Kingdom (1995), the ECtHR recognised that Article 2 imposes operational duties on states to minimise lethal risks from third parties where reasonably practicable. Critics contend that permissive border regimes risk breaching the spirit — if not the letter — of this obligation by prioritising process rights over precautionary governance. This argument does not claim that policymakers cause crimes committed by individuals, but rather that institutional design choices affect exposure to foreseeable harm, particularly for women and vulnerable populations.

Article 3 and the Importation of Risk Environments

Article 3 of the ECHR prohibits inhuman or degrading treatment. Traditionally, this provision has been invoked to block deportations to countries where individuals face torture or severe mistreatment, as in Soering v United Kingdom (1989). Critics argue that contemporary policy inverts this logic by importing risk environments into domestic public life without adequate filtering mechanisms, potentially exposing citizens to intimidation, harassment, or fear-based withdrawal from public spaces.

This critique has gained traction in the context of large-scale protests and communal tensions in major British cities since October 2023. While most demonstrations are peaceful, some have been accompanied by rhetoric that Jewish communities and others perceive as threatening. The concern is not that protest itself violates rights, but that the cumulative effect of ideological importation combined with weak enforcement erodes the practical enjoyment of security and dignity — values Article 3 was intended to protect.

Due Process, Speech Regulation, and Article 6

Another strand of criticism focuses on free expression and due process. Commentators argue that expanding regulation of online speech — including through the Online Safety Act 2023 and the application of public order offences — risks suppressing lawful dissent, particularly around immigration, national identity, and government policy. They point to cases in which individuals have been prosecuted or detained for speech acts that, while provocative, fall short of incitement to violence.

Article 6 of the ECHR guarantees the right to a fair and public hearing by an independent tribunal. While the UK has not abolished jury trials, critics argue that procedural shortcuts in protest-related and speech-related cases undermine the cultural expectation of trial by peers and the adversarial safeguards of common law justice. In Steel and Others v United Kingdom (1998), the ECtHR warned that restrictions on political expression require particularly careful justification. The concern today is not just the existence of p[roblematic hate speech law per se, but its uneven application — where some forms of incendiary rhetoric appear tolerated while others attract swift sanction.

Universalism, Sovereignty, and the Purpose of Rights

From a conservative constitutional perspective, the deeper issue is philosophical rather than technical. The ECHR was drafted in the aftermath of World War II to restrain totalitarian abuse and protect individuals from the state. Critics argue that it has gradually been repurposed into a vehicle for regulating borders, social policy, and political speech — domains historically reserved to democratic legislatures. This, they argue, displaces the Lockean logic of government as guarantor of citizens' security in favour of a universalist framework that dilutes responsibility and accountability.

Sir Keir Starmer, as both human rights barrister and political leader, symbolises this shift. His strong institutional loyalty to the ECHR and the Human Rights Act reflects a belief that supranational legal frameworks provide moral ballast against nationalist excess. Critics counter that this approach inverts the purpose of rights law: transforming protections into constraints on self-government, and in some cases subordinating citizen security to abstract humanitarian ideals.

Conclusion: Human Rights for Whom?

This critique does not accuse Starmer of illegality or personal misconduct. It argues instead that his legal philosophy — and the policy architecture it informs — risks hollowing out the protective function of human rights law. British Jews concerned about communal safety, women concerned about violent crime, and citizens concerned about the shrinking space for lawful dissent increasingly experience rights discourse as something done to them rather than for them.

Human rights were meant to shield ordinary people from abuse of power, not to dissolve the boundary between citizen and non-citizen responsibility, nor to silence democratic disagreement. If public confidence in rights law continues to erode, the danger is not merely political backlash but constitutional decay — where legal ideals lose legitimacy because they no longer correspond to lived reality.

The challenge ahead is not to abandon human rights, but to recover their original purpose: protecting the people of a polity, first and foremost, while respecting the dignity of others. Sir Keir Starmer's model fails to achieve that balance

https://dailysceptic.org/2025/12/30/sir-keir-starmer-poses-a-threat-to-the-human-rights-of-the-british-people/