Key events
New home secretary considering reform of European convention of human rights to head off Reform advance
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of UK politics. The new home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, is expected to move Labour further to the right on migration to stop the advance of Reform, which has been enjoying a double digit poll lead having exploited a political vacuum left by the government over the summer.
Nigel Farage, Reform UK’s leader, has said there is every chance of a general election in 2027 and declared he will run on a pledge to “stop the boats” within two weeks of entering No 10.
The Sunday Times is reporting that Mahmood, conscious of Farage’s popularity with voters, is likely to want to reform the European convention on human rights (ECHR), with a source telling the paper that the former justice secretary would “start with the unthinkable and work backwards”.
Despite warnings that ECHR withdrawal would threaten the Good Friday agreement, Farage has insisted he would leave the convention and replace it with a British Bill of Rights applying only to British citizens and those who have a legal right to live in the UK. Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative party leader, has also said she would look into leaving the ECHR.
Desperate to speed up asylum processing to bring down the backlog and end hotel use, Mahmood is set to announce shortly that hotels used to house asylum seekers will be moved into barracks on former military bases, according to the Telegraph.
It is also being reported that the UK government are close to agreeing a “one in, one out” returns deal with Germany, having already sealed one with France over the summer.
The deal with France allows the UK to return one person who has entered the country by irregular means in return for taking someone in France whose claim for asylum in the UK is expected to have a greater chance of success.
It has been hailed as a “gamechanging” by ministers but it will apply to a very small amount of asylum seekers, at least at first. As boats do not launch from Germany, the deal with Friedrich Merz’s government would more likely cover migrants who have crossed through the country to reach France, according to the Telegraph. We will have more on this later.