Opposition figures have called for the Attorney General to be sacked after he appeared to compare current criticism of international law to the legal climate in 1930s Germany.
In a keynote speech to the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), Lord Hermer, who is Jewish, reiterated the government’s commitment to international law.
Hermer said that the government’s foreign and security policy – previously described by David Lammy, the foreign secretary as “progressive realism” – was one that “combines both a pragmatic approach to the UK’s national interests with a principled commitment to a rules-based international order”.
But he went on to say that the government’s approach was “a rejection of the siren song, that can sadly, now be heard in the Palace of Westminster, and in some spectrums of the media, that Britain abandons the constraints of international law in favour of raw power”.
“This is not a new song”, he added, telling the audience: “The claim that international law is fine as far as it goes, but can be put aside when 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.
“Because of the experience of what followed in 1933, far-sighted individuals rebuilt and transformed the institutions of international law, as well as internal constitutional law.”
Hermer also criticised “posturing over support for the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights) and international law more generally”.
Senior Conservative and Reform UK figures have called for withdrawal from the ECHR, which they claim restricts the UK’s ability to control its borders.
In February this year, citing the ECHR, a judge granted permission for a Palestinian family to live in the UK despite the fact that they applied through a scheme for Ukrainian refugees.
Senior figures from both the Conservatives and Reform UK reacted angrily to Hermer’s comments, with shadow home secretary Chris Philp calling them an “outrageous smear”.
“The interpretation of the ECHR has been expanded & twisted by Judges over the years to allow illegal immigrants and foreign criminals to stay in Western countries, regardless of laws passed by their Parliaments” he wrote in a post on X, adding that Hermer “should be fired”.
Richard Tice, Reform UK’s deputy leader, similarly called on Hermer to apologise and claimed his comments showed his unsuitability for office.
“If anyone on the right of politics used his language there would be outrage He has shown himself as unfit to be Attorney General”, he added.
Earlier this week, Boris Johnson’s former chief of staff Dominic Cummings suggested that any government would be unable to control immigration without leaving the ECHR.
Last month, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage told ITV that, should he be elected prime minister, the first thing he would do would be to leave the ECHR: "We have to get back the ability to decide, can we really control our borders? Who comes and lives here?... You know what? I think three quarters of the country would cheer to the rafters."
Hermer, though, rejected these sentiments, telling Rusi: “Allow me if you will, to channel Reg, the leader of the People’s Front of Judea in Life of Brian and ask rhetorically what has international law ever done for us? Well, the answer is that it has helped give us peace, security and prosperity.”
Earlier this year, Hermer faced significant criticism – including from figures within Labour – and calls to resign over his allegedly “finickity” approach to the law, which sources felt was obstructing the work of government.
Labour Peer Lord Glasman, who is also Jewish, called Hermer an “arrogant, progressive fool”.
Hermer, who along with Ed Miliband is one of two Jews to serve in Sir Keir Starmer’s cabinet, is a former colleague of the prime minister’s from when the pair were barristers together at Doughty Street chambers.
