Starmer under pressure to sack Attorney General after Nazi remarks

Kemi Badenoch calls for ‘dangerous’ Lord Hermer to go after his apology for ECHR comments

30 May 2025 

Daily Telegraph 

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Sir Keir Starmer is facing pressure to sack his Attorney General after he compared calls to leave the European Convention on Human Rights to the rise of Nazism.

Lord Hermer was forced to apologise on Friday for his “clumsy” remarks that likened politicians wanting to leave the ECHR to legal experts in 1930s Germany, who rejected international law and human rights in favour of state power.

Following an outcry from Conservative and Reform MPs, Lord Hermer’s spokesman said he acknowledged that “his choice of words was clumsy and regrets having used this reference”, in an apology released by Downing Street.

The row, an attack on the Tories and Reform, is a particular headache for Sir Keir as it comes less than a week before the Scottish Parliament by-election in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse, where Nigel Farage’s party will challenge Labour, a month after seizing hundreds of seats in the local elections.

Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader whom Lord Hermer criticised by name, is leading calls to sack him, though the Prime Minister has insisted he has full confidence in his law chief.

Mrs Badenoch, who has hinted that she would be prepared to leave the ECHR unless it is reformed, said: “From refusing to fight the case against Kneecap, to advising the Government to hand over £30 billion and our territory in the Chagos Islands, Lord Hermer has shown appalling judgment time and again. Now he’s calling people who disagree with him Nazis.

“This isn’t just embarrassing, it’s dangerous. Hermer doesn’t understand government. He believes in the rule of lawyers, not the rule of law. If Keir Starmer had any backbone, he’d sack him. But will he risk upsetting his old friend and former donor? I doubt it.”

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, who has backed leaving the ECHR said: “An apology is something, but the damage to our country continues. Hermer sums up this failing Government.”

‘Comments were extreme and foolish’

Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary who has also backed quitting the treaty, said: “Lord Hermer’s appalling smear shows the complete disdain with which Labour views people who care about border security. He is a liability that you can’t trust to defend Britain’s interests. Starmer hasn’t sacked him because he shares his anti-British, hard-Left world view.”

The row has also caused concerns on Labour backbenches. Senior Labour MP Graham Stringer said: “I think it was a mistake to appoint someone with no obvious political experience to a senior position in the Cabinet. Blunders like that can be expected from inexperienced politicians.

“If you can join international treaties, you can leave them. There are processes for that. His comments were extreme and foolish.”

Lord Hermer, who has no background in politics, is a friend of the Prime Minister and was given a peerage to enter Parliament after Labour won the general election last year.

He has already faced criticism over his alleged conflicts of interest in his previous work as a human rights lawyer, including representing Gerry Adams.

His apology came hours after a minister defended him. Catherine McKinnell, an education minister, insisted he had given “a quite thoughtful speech about international law”, telling Times Radio: “Talk about withdrawing from international law only helps people like those who prefer a lawless world.”

However, his comments are said to have caused unrest within Sir Keir’s Cabinet. One source told The Times that his comments were “the kind of thing that you might do if you’re a campaigning human rights lawyer” but that “you can’t behave like that in government and it reveals an awful lot about him”.

‘Rejection of the siren song’

In his speech on Thursday, he said that the Tories’ “pick and mix” approach towards treaties and agreements clashed with Labour’s policy of “progressive realism”, which he said meant the Government worked within the limits of international law.

He said that their approach marked a “rejection of the siren song” that “Britain abandons the constraints of international law in favour of raw power”.

“This is not a new song. The claim that international law is fine as far as it goes, but can be put aside when the conditions change, is a claim that was made in the early 1930s by ‘realist’ jurists in Germany most notably Carl Schmitt, whose central thesis was in essence the claim that state power is all that counts, not law,” he said.

“Because of the experience of what followed 1933, far-sighted individuals rebuilt and transformed the institutions of international law, as well as internal constitutional law.”

Mr Schmitt, who joined the Nazi party in 1933, is seen as an authoritarian conservative theorist who was a vocal critic of parliamentary democracy and liberalism. His theories about state power provided ideological justification for the regime but he later lost favour and was removed from official positions.

A spokesman for Lord Hermer said: “The Attorney General gave a speech defending international law which underpins our security, protects against threats from aggressive states like Russia and helps tackle organised immigration crime.

“He rejects the characterisation of his speech by the Conservatives. He acknowledges, though, that his choice of words was clumsy and regrets having used this reference.”