Starmer pledges rethink on international law to stop ‘Farage boats’

0:02Hi, I'm Charlie Duffield and welcome back to The Standard Podcast. If you're new here, hit follow and give us a rating. For all the latest news, head to standard.co.uk. Coming up later in the show. Their love story was legendary, but now Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban's divorce is just the latest celebrity split to send shockwaves around the world. There have been hints in sort of recent months that not everything was going perfectly. Their distance was noted in a Woman's Day article last month with an insider claiming Kidman and Urban do make an effort to speak every day when they're apart. It's shocking basically how much time they've spent apart since Nicole's mother died last September.

0:46It's like they both went their separate ways, the insider claimed. But first, today is the final day of the Labour Party conference and Sir Keir Starmer has signalled his government is planning to change the way human rights laws are applied to tackle the challenge of mass migration. He said he won't tear down international laws, but that a rethink is needed on how they are applied. Here's what he said when speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme earlier. We need to look again at the interpretation of some of these provisions. And we've already begun to do that work, Nick, in some of our domestic legislation.

1:24We do need to look at that. So that's what's called Article 3, isn't it? It's Article 3 or Article 8. They're the two that are most immediately in place. But it's more than that. It's the refugee conventions. it's the torture conventions, it's conventional the rights of the children. I'm not going to tear all that down. I believe in those instruments. I believe in the rule of law, and I think they matter. But all international instruments, and this is long established, have to be applied in the circumstances as they are now. We're seeing mass migration in a way that we haven't seen in previous years.

1:55So I believe that those genuinely fleeing persecution should be afforded asylum, them and that is a compassionate act but I equally think we need to look at again at the interpretation of some of these provisions and I think there's a difference between someone being deported to summary execution and someone who is simply going somewhere where they don't have the same level of health care or for that matter the same prison conditions and therefore I do think we should look at issues like that again I think there's quite an appetite to look at issues like that again. But what I don't think is right is to pull these instruments down, not least because very many other countries would then not do deals like return deals with us or law enforcement deals with us, and therefore it'd be completely self-defeating.

2:43More than 33 ,000 people have arrived in the UK so far this year on small boats, a record since data was first reported in 2018. Starmer was speaking following the conclusion of Labour's annual conference in Liverpool, where he made a speech criticising Nigel Farage as someone who had never liked or believed in Britain. Joining us now is The Standards' Chief Political Correspondent, Rachel Burford. Migration seems to be all we're hearing about from Labour right now. What do you think, Rachel? It's certainly a big issue with voters and one that's seen parties like Nigel Farage's reform really soar in the polls.

3:21There have been lots of reports of foreign offenders being able to stay in the country even after they've been convicted of quite serious crimes by using human rights laws, particularly Articles 3 and 8 of the European Court of Human Rights, which ban torture and protect the rights to a private life and family life. So this morning when Keir Starmer was doing a sort of media round following his big keynote speech at Labour Party conference, he signalled that the government is looking at these and whether or not the UK can perhaps leave or find a way to sort of circumnavigate them in a way. And who is Keir Starmer blaming for this increase in channel crossings?

4:00We're seeing record numbers of people crossing the Channel for various reasons, often coming from countries that are war-torn and have significant human rights abuses. It's a very visible form of migration. The small boats, they come over on the Channel, they're rescued in the Channel and brought over. And then they have to be processed here and put into housing while their asylum claims are assessed. And some of that housing is hotels and they have been extremely controversial. So the Labour Party has always talked about cracking down on the gangs that facilitate those crossings. I think the smash the gangs phrase was the phrase the Labour Party used.

4:37And they've talked about how they are cracking down on these human trafficking gangs, trying to target the people that are actually facilitating the crossings. But whether that be seizing their money, people are paying tens of thousands of pounds sometimes to be on those small boats that are coming across. This morning, Keir Starmer was labelling those dinghies that are coming across with people on them as Farage boats, because there has been a significant increase in them since Brexit. Obviously, Nigel Farage, although he was not an MP then, he was very much one of the faces of Brexit and has been arguing for decades that Britain should leave the European Union.

5:16I think he's heard this morning that these are Farage boats in many senses that are coming across the channel. So Labour have switched their stance on this issue. Previously, they were blaming human trafficking gangs, right? But yes, this is a slightly new sort of take, or certainly I think it's been talked about, but not as openly as this, that it's partly down to Brexit. Before we had these returns agreements and now we don't, and that is a significant driver. So what else has Starmer said? Yesterday in his big keynote speech, Starmer directly pitted Labour against Reform UK and warned his party was in a battle for the soul of Britain, is the way he put it.

5:52He accused Nigel Farage of being about the politics of grievance. And he said that Farage doesn't like Britain and wants to create a competition of victims. There's been a lot of talk about reforms, planned policies of deporting people that are in this country at the moment, not giving them leave to remain, and putting in policies that would mean they could be deported lawfully. Keir Starmer did brand that plan racist, although this morning he said he doesn't think Nigel Farage is racist and he doesn't think reform voters are racist. They are concerned about our borders and they are concerned about immigration.

6:28There was a lot of talk about Nigel Farage in his speech yesterday. In fact, throughout this entire conference, it's been very clear that Labour sees reform as the opposition, not the Conservative Party. There's been barely any mention of Kemi Pajanak, the Tory leader, or the Tory party themselves, which is a very different stance from years gone by, they obviously see Nigel Farage and reform as their opposition, which is understandable as polls suggest that reform are the most popular party in the country at the moment. And they are known for wanting to have an extremely tough stance on immigration.

7:04So that is a theme that has obviously dominated this conference. Finally, do you have any reflections on the Labour Party conference this year? Kirstama came into this conference quite embattled. It's a very different atmosphere to last year. Kirstama had won that huge landslide election victory, and there was a big high. Since then, there has been a lot of questions about his leadership, particularly in the last few weeks. I think he had to do something to settle his critics and the people who are sort of trying to take his job and suggesting he's not the right man for the job. So that's why they've come out with this very tough stance on immigration.

7:39They're talking about immigration a lot more. Kirstama even brought it up in his speech yesterday that He'd met Labour voters, people who'd voted Labour all their lives, who thought that, you know, their worries and concerns about immigration would be seen as racist by the party. So he's really trying to push back on that and say, you know, talking about immigration is not racist. Do need to have a discussion about it. Immigration is perhaps too high in the UK. Although I think one of the problems Labour is really going to face over the next few years and the duration of this parliament is they have other promises.

8:12You know, they've promised to build 1.5 million homes. That's going to be extremely difficult if they do not bring in labour from abroad. We do not have enough people in this country trained up to deliver those homes. So there is going to have to be some kind of migration coming in. And, you know, we've seen it with the care sector as well. The care sector is heavily reliant on foreign labour at the moment. The government is putting in steps to try and reduce that, but that's not going to happen overnight. People are worried about immigration now. You know, it may be that these policies do work several years down the line, but then we'll be, you know, coming up to the next election where people will still have those concerns.

8:52So they're in a bit of a fight at the moment between kind of short-term solutions and long-term solutions. It's a difficult thing for them to navigate. Let's go to a break. Coming up in part two. A prenuptial agreement like you've never heard before from the latest tragic Hollywood split. We'll see you back here in just a moment.

9:20Welcome back. News of Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban's split after nearly two decades of marriage has sent shockwaves around the world. They had long been regarded as one of the most enduring couples in show business, working across film and music through a seemingly successful union. Here are the couples speaking last year when Nicole Kidman was honoured with an American Film Institute Life Achievement Award at a ceremony in Los Angeles. Three Grammy Award nominations, back to nomination. Other side of the planet, what are you guys going to do? Beyond other sides of the planet. Oh no! Yeah, it's a conundrum because it's a huge honour.

9:57Yeah, on both things. For both of us, yeah. And it's probably never going to happen again, so we go, okay. And then Valentine's Day, we're like, woo! The Oscar-winning actress filed for divorce in a Tennessee court on Tuesday, confirming the rumours, saying the pair's marriage has suffered irreconcilable differences. And today, details have resurfaced of the couple's prenuptial agreement, which was signed at their 2006 wedding and specifically of a cocaine clause. That meant Urban would earn$600 ,000 from Nicole for every year they were married if he remained sober during the relationship. To find out more, I spoke to The Standards news reporter Megan Howe.

10:39Megan, tell me more about them. Two of the biggest stars to come out of Australia in recent decades. Kidman was obviously famously previously married to Tom Cruise until their marriage ended in 2001. Kidman is, as I'm sure most people are aware, an Oscar-winning Hollywood actress who's known for films including Moulin Rouge, Australia, The Others, and The Hours for which she won her Oscar for, and most recently, Baby Girl. Keith Urban is a Grammy Award-winning country music singer and songwriter who was also famously a judge on American Idol. So the couple got married in 2006 and have two children together, Sunday Rose, who is 17, and Faith Margaret, who's 14, and they are based in Nashville.

11:21It's unclear when exactly they split up and who caused the split. Do we know anything further? Nicole Kidman, we know, filed for divorce in a Tennessee court on Tuesday saying the pair's marriage had suffered irreconcilable differences. But the couple had been reportedly living apart since the beginning of the summer, with Nicole Kidman recently decamping to London to film the Practical Magic sequel. She was said to be paying a reported £65 ,000 a month to rent a mansion in Hampstead, which was once owned by Boy George. It has been reported that Urban is the one to have instigated the split, which apparently blindsided Kidman.

11:59She has apparently taken care of their two children since Urban left for his High and Alive tour in May. A source said Kidman had been holding the family together through this difficult time since Keith has been gone. And now we have news of this unusual prenuptial agreement. What's going on there? So following the news yesterday that Kidman had obviously filed for divorce, attention has turned to the couple's prenuptial agreement, which was obviously signed before their 2006 wedding. So details of the arrangement have resurfaced with reports suggesting that Urban could walk away with quite a significant sum due to quite an unorthodox cocaine clause.

12:35So the couple basically included a cocaine clause that would see Urban earn around$600 ,000 from Nicole Kidman for every year that they were married or on the condition that he remained sober during their relationship. Urban has spoken quite candidly about his struggles with addiction in the past. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2010, he explained how Nicole Kidman staged an intervention just months after their wedding, which ultimately helped him obviously overcome his addiction. By all accounts, Urban has reportedly been sober ever since, so he could now walk away with around$11 million from this clause alone.

13:12Finally, do you have anything else to add? I think it's shocked quite a few people. As I said, they are considered to be a power couple, a sort of golden couple in Hollywood and sort of blending both the worlds of movies and music. And also, as I previously said, they're also two of the biggest stars to come out of Australia in recent decades as well. So I think it has come as a shock as much as a Hollywood split can come as a shock to people. But there have been hints that perhaps things were not as they seemed in recent months as well. Back in July, Urban dropped a hint that all was not well between him and Kidman when he hung up during a phone interview with a radio station after a crude question was asked about Kidman filming sex scenes.

13:54Kidman also has told interviewers whilst promoting her Netflix series, The Perfect Couple, in September last year that there's no perfect anything that's presented as perfect. Forget it, she said. All sorts of hints, basically, that perhaps things were not as perfect as they seemed to be on camera. So I think perhaps a shock to the vast majority, but perhaps more enthusiastic fans of theirs, perhaps not so much of a shock.

14:25and that's the standard for all the latest news head to standard.co.uk if you'd like to get in touch please do drop us a line at podcasts at standard.co.uk we'll be back here tomorrow at 5 p.m we'll see you then