Britain’s new equalities watchdog has warned against talking up the ‘risks’ of immigration.
Mary-Ann Stephenson hit out at the ‘demonisation of migrants’ and people ‘creating this idea’ that the level of arrivals was a problem.
In her first major intervention since being appointed by Labour ministers, the Equality and Human Rights Commission chair also insisted leaving the European Convention on Human Rights would be a ‘mistake’.
The comments mark a shift in approach from Ms Stephenson’s predecessor Baroness Falkner, who voiced concerns about integration of communities.
Immigration has been rising up the agenda after long-term arrivals reached a record high, although they have since subsided somewhat.
Keir Starmer has sparked a bitter debate in Labour circles by stressing the need to curb numbers and get back control of borders, as the party faces huge pressure from Reform.
Mary-Ann Stephenson hit out at the ‘demonisation of migrants’ and people ‘creating this idea’ that the level of arrivals was a problem
The ECHR has been blamed by critics for preventing asylum seekers being deported (file picture of migrants leaving the French coast on a small boat in October)
Ms Stephenson told the Press Association in an interview: ‘I think it’s really important that we have honesty in the way that we talk about human rights, and that we also have a recognition that the demonisation of migrants, the creating this idea that migration causes huge risks for the country can make the lives not just of migrants to the UK, but of ethnic minority UK citizens, very, very difficult.’
The ECHR – an international treaty not lined to the EU – has come under heavy fire from critics who argue it hampers efforts to deport illegal migrants.
Both the Conservatives and Reform UK have said they would quit it as part of efforts to tackle immigration.
The Labour Government has said it will not leave the European treaty but ministers are reviewing human rights law to make it easier to deport people who have no right to be in the UK.
Changes to Article 3 – prohibition on torture or inhuman or degrading treatment – and Article 8 – the right to family life – are included in the Government’s plans to overhaul the asylum system.
Both articles have been used to prevent people with no right to be in the UK being sent back to their home countries.
However, Ms Stephenson said the convention was ‘really important’ and leaving would weaken the rights everyone depends on.
‘It’s embedded in UK law through the Human Rights Act, and it provides rights that protect all of us,’ she said.
She gave examples such as the John Worboys black cab rapist case which saw the Supreme Court rule that police can be held liable for serious failures in their investigations, and another involving the threatened separation of an elderly couple when one needed to go into residential care.
She said these showed how necessary the Human Rights Act was in incorporating the convention rights into UK law.
Ms Stephenson said: ‘These are all sorts of cases where most people would think that’s the sort of thing we would want to see. Those are the sorts of rights we would want to have.
‘And so I think leaving the European Convention is a mistake. It weakens the rights that all of us depend on.’
She also noted a ‘real risk of people using, quite often, cases where human rights arguments were made in court but were not successful’.
Ms Stephenson noted research from the University of Oxford earlier this year which highlighted ‘several high-profile examples of misleading coverage, including the so-called ‘chicken nuggets’ case – widely reported as the prevention of an individual’s deportation on the basis of his child’s dislike of foreign food, despite the decision not being based on this detail and having already been overturned’.
Earlier this month the chief of the body that oversees the convention said member states had taken an ‘important first step forward together’ in agreeing to look at reforming the treaty to tackle migration within its legal framework.
Council of Europe secretary general Alain Berset said that the treaty, which he described as a ‘living instrument’, is possible to adapt and work will begin to adopt the new political declaration in Moldova in May 2026.
However, a bid by Sir Keir to step up reforms looks to have been thwarted after France and Germany refused to back it.
The EHR commission monitors rights and freedoms across England, Scotland and Wales.
