Labour rights-law clash tests Starmer as Powell rises in deputy race

Britain’s opposition Labour Party faced a fresh test on immigration policy this week as Sir Keir Starmer’s promise of a tight, “one in, one out” approach was blocked by court action invoking the Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights. The developments, highlighted in a Daily Mail debate column, underscored a broader friction inside Labour between electoral ambitions and the legal constraints many associate with rights protections. The front-page framing captured a sense of reversal: a policy meant to demonstrate swift, sovereign action now entangled in the very legal architecture Starmer once promised to respect.

In his column, Quentin Letts argues that Starmer’s long-standing commitment to parliamentary procedure and due process—qualities he once praised in opposition when criticizing Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak—has left him exposed to the same judicial pushback that hamstrung previous Conservative efforts. Letts likens the situation to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, where a letter switch undone Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and, in his telling, to the political engineer who finds his own device turning against him. The piece casts the debate as a clash between the rule of law and the political will of elected government, suggesting that legal absolutism has become a democratic liability when it blocks action on border security and small-boat crossings. ![Editorial image](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/09/17/22/102232871-0-image-m-8_1758145921999.jpg