Thursday briefing: Will Labour’s human rights overhaul curb or fuel the far right?

Migrants prepare to board a boat for a Channel crossing from Gravelines, northern France. The UK is pushing European partners to tighten asylum rules and revise how human rights protections are applied. Photograph: Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP/Getty

Good morning. Yesterday was Human Rights Day, set up in 1950 by the United Nations to celebrate the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a statement of fundamental rights and freedoms in response to the horrors of the second world war.

This historic, non-binding document laid the foundations for the European convention on human rights (ECHR), an international treaty signed by European states including the UK. Each country made a legal commitment to protect certain rights and freedoms to guard against a repeat of human rights atrocities and to help fulfil the promise of “never again”.