The Conservatives flirted with leaving the convention after the European Court of Human Rights intervened to block deportation flights to Rwanda, under the former government’s ill-fated asylum scheme.
Talking up a reset both in relations with the continent and on migration policy, Starmer promised that his government would never leave the 70-year-old convention, which Winston Churchill helped draw up.
Speaking from Churchill’s birthplace of Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, where the summit is taking place, Starmer said: “We are resetting our approach here.”
“We will approach this [migration] issue with humanity and with a profound respect for international law, and that’s why we scrapped the unworkable Rwanda scheme on day one, and it’s why we will never withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights,” Starmer said.
Starmer is expected to use the summit — initially organized by short-lived ex-Prime Minister Liz Truss in 2022 — to meet and greet dozens of European leaders as he seeks improved relations with them and to eventually strike a revised, finessed Brexit deal.
“Under my leadership, Britain will be a friend and a partner ready to work with you, not part of the European Union, but very much part of Europe,” Starmer said.