KEMI: WE NEED TO PUT OUR NATIONAL INTEREST FIRST

Tory leader urges Starmer to close 'crazy' European law loophole that allowed Palestinian family to stay in UK under Ukraine refugee scheme

- Martyn Brown and Michael Knowles

KEMI Badenoch urged Keir Starmer to put UK national interests first instead of yielding to "crazy" European human rights laws.

She hit out as a court said Gaza refugees who used a scheme for Ukrainians must be let in to Britain. The Tory leader's remarks have intensified demands for her to commit to pulling the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights if her party returns to power.

Critics claim the decision by an immigration tribunal may open the floodgates to anyone in any conflict zone applying for asylum in the UK.

The Prime Minister said yesterday that the decision was "wrong" - and he added that the Government was looking at changing the law.

The Gaza family of six - a mother, father and their children aged 18, 17, eight and seven - were displaced when their home in the strip was destroyed by an air strike during the Israel-Hamas war.

They applied for entry to the UK, via the Ukraine Family Scheme, to join the man's British citizen brother who has lived here since 2007. That was refused last May when the Home Office said the requirements of the scheme had not been met.

The family, who have been granted anonymity, had an appeal against the decision dismissed by a first-tier immigration tribunal judge last September.

A further appeal has been allowed by upper tribunal judges, on the grounds of Article 8 of the ECHR, after a hearing last month.