Sir Keir Starmer, the leader of the UK’s Labour Party, and several of his party’s members, called on the Home Office to halt all deportation flights, including those for foreign criminals, just weeks before Sir Keir took charge of the party.
The demands were made in a letter that also called for the provision of mobile phone SIM cards to those being deported, to allow them to arrange last-ditch reviews.
The letter, signed by Sir Keir and other senior Labour MPs, emerged after the case of Ernesto Elliott, who was jailed for life for murdering a man in June 2021.
Elliott had been scheduled to be deported to Jamaica six months earlier but was taken off a flight thanks to the intervention of Labour MPs and celebrities.
The letter, dated February 2020, called for “all future charter flights” to be suspended until lessons from the Windrush Scandal, in which people who arrived in Britain from the Caribbean were wrongly deported, were implemented.
It also demanded that the Home Office provide SIM cards to those being deported to ensure they have access to legal advice and assistance.
Labour Party sources have since clarified that they do not want to block future deportation flights for serious criminals and that the letter was signed under the previous leadership.
Sir Keir, a former human rights lawyer, has previously represented Khalid Al-Fawwaz, an aide of Osama Bin Laden, in a case seeking to avoid extradition to the USA.
