EUROPHILE Nick Clegg is calling for a shake-up of Strasbourg rules to keep stricter control of our borders and tackle the small boats crisis.
The ex-Deputy Prime Minister hit out at how the European Convention on Human Rights is being applied.
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His intervention comes after a series of cases where foreign criminals and asylum seekers were using the laws to stop being deported.
His comments also come after Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and Tory leader Kemi Badenoch say the UK will likely need to leave the agreement.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is currently holding a review on how Article 8 – the right to a family life – is applied and allowing people to avoid deportation.
But the ex-Lib Dem leader also calls on Article 3, prohibiting anyone from torture, also to be probed by Ministers.
Sir Nick, talking to LBC Radio, said: “I think how some of the provisions of the ECHR, the Article Three and Eight, definitely need to look at narrowing that.
“I would actually look quite aggressively at that”
“I think that whole kind of doctrine was applied at a different time. So you have to get on top of that. I think on the longer run, this is my guess.”
Clegg told a Cabinet meeting back in 2012 that he backed then PM David Cameron’s campaign to reform the ECHR.
Along with the Whitehall review, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said the application of the rights “feels out of step with common sense”.
It comes after ex-Labour Home Secretary Jack Straw called on Sir Keir Starmer to “decouple” British laws from the ECHR.
The Human Rights Act says British courts have to take account of judgements from the Strasbourg court.
There have been concerns that the ECHR isn’t being interpreted in the way it was intended when it was drafted back in the 1940s and 1950s.
Lord Blunkett, another former Labour Home Secretary, has said parts of the ECHR should be suspended temporarily which could allow asylum seekers to be sent back to their home country.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: “The penny has now dropped for Nick Clegg, with him now admitting that the ECHR is outdated and must be thoroughly reviewed.
“It is more proof that reform across the board is not only overdue—it’s inevitable.”
“That is why the Conservatives brought forward legislation to disapply the Human Rights Act in immigration cases—so British judges can no longer rely on the ECHR to block common-sense decisions, as we must be able to deport every single foreign criminal and illegal immigrant crossing the channel – and will do whatever it takes to achieve that.
“Shamefully, Labour and the Liberal Democrats opposed this.”
