Judge who granted Palestinian family asylum made wrong call, says Keir Starmer

The Guardian

12-02-2025

A judge who granted a Palestinian family the right to live in the UK after they applied through a scheme originally meant for Ukrainian refugees made the wrong decision, Keir Starmer has said.
A family of six seeking to flee Gaza were allowed to join their brother in the UK after an immigration judge ruled that the Home Office's rejection of their application breached their human rights, it emerged on Tuesday.
Starmer said he did not agree with the decision and the Home Office intended to close the loophole. The family had made their application through the Ukraine Family Scheme.
Hugo Norton-Taylor, an upper tribunal judge, allowed the family to come to the UK on the basis of their right to a family life under article 8 of the European convention on human rights (ECHR).
'We conclude that the respondent's (Home Office's) refusal of the collective human rights claim does not, on the particular facts of these cases, strike a fair balance between the appellants' interests and those of the public.
'On a cumulative basis, the weight we attach to the considerations weighing on the appellants' side of the scales demonstrates a very strong claim indeed. Put another way, there are very compelling or exceptional circumstances.
'Accordingly, the appellants' appeals are allowed,' he said.
He said that the youngest children, now aged seven and nine, were 'at a high risk of death or serious injury on a daily basis' and that it was 'overwhelmingly' in their best interests to be in a safer environment with their parents and siblings.
Answering the Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, during PMQs on Wednesday Starmer said: 'I do not agree with the decision. She is right, it is the wrong decision. She hasn't quite done her homework because the decision in question was taken under the last government.'
Starmer said it 'should be parliament that makes the rules on immigration, it should be the government that makes the policy, that is the principle and the home secretary is already looking at the legal loophole which we need to close in this particular case'.
As first reported in the Daily Telegraph, the Palestinian family – a mother, father and four children aged seven to 18 – had seen their home destroyed by an airstrike and were living in a Gaza refugee camp with daily threats to their lives from Israeli military attacks.
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They applied using the Ukraine scheme's form in January last year on the basis that it best fitted their circumstances and their situation was so 'compelling and compassionate' that their application should be granted outside its rules.
The scheme, set up in March 2022, allowed Ukrainian nationals and their family members to come to the UK if they had a relative who was a British citizen or had settled in the country. About 72,000 visas were issued before it closed last February.
The family's claim was initially rejected by an immigration tribunal on the grounds it was outside the Ukraine programme's rules and that parliament decided which countries would benefit from resettlement schemes.
Downing Street said the government's solution to closing the 'legal loophole' in the family case would be announced in the 'coming weeks'.
The prime minister's official spokesperson declined to say whether the government would be appealing against the judge's decision.