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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Aubrey Allegretti, Rajeev Syal and Nadeem Badshah

Lords could defeat plan to ignore ECHR small boat rulings, ministers warned

An RNLI lifeboat picks up people who were crossing the Channel in an inflatable boat
An RNLI lifeboat picks up people who were crossing the Channel in an inflatable boat earlier this month. Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty

Ministers have been warned by a former head of the judiciary that plans to let the UK ignore rulings from the European court of human rights (ECHR) on small boat crossings could be defeated in the House of Lords.

John Thomas, who was lord chief justice of England and Wales from 2013 to 2017, said the move would probably amount to a “symbolic breach of the rule of law”.

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