Nigel Farage “hasn’t the faintest idea of the consequences” of removing the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) from the Good Friday Agreement, Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn has said.
Mr Benn added that to jeopardise the Good Friday agreement, which secured peace in Northern Ireland, would be “dangerously irresponsible”.
Reform UK leader Mr Farage has long supported leaving the ECHR, and said on Tuesday that the Good Friday Agreement could be “renegotiated” to remove references to the convention.
His comments came during a press conference at London Oxford Airport, where he and Reform chairman Zia Yusuf were launching their party’s plans to tackle illegal migration.
The plans include leaving the ECHR and replacing the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights, which would only apply to British citizens and those who have a legal right to live in the UK.
When asked whether he was concerned that leaving the ECHR could jeopardise the Good Friday Agreement, Mr Farage said: “Blair, of course, wrote the ECHR into everything.
“He wrote it into everything to try and embed it deeply in British law.
“Can we renegotiate the Good Friday Agreement to get the ECHR out of it? Yes. Is that something that can happen very, very quickly? No, it will take longer.
“So, unfortunately and for a variety of reasons, previous governments have placed Northern Ireland, I’m afraid, in a different position to the rest of the United Kingdom, something that we vigorously opposed.
“It will take a little bit longer with Northern Ireland.”
Mr Benn insisted that the ECHR is “one of the pillars” of the 1998 agreement that ended most Troubles-related violence.
He said: “The 1998 Good Friday Agreement brought to an end three decades of terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and across the United Kingdom.
“For Nigel Farage to talk flippantly about trying to remove one of the pillars of that historic agreement shows that he hasn’t got the faintest idea about the consequences.
“To jeopardise the Good Friday Agreement would not only be dangerously irresponsible, but would also disrespect all those who helped to bring about the peace that the people of Northern Ireland now enjoy.”
Downing Street also ruled out leaving the ECHR, with Sir Keir Starmer’s spokesman saying: “The ECHR underpins key international agreements, trade, security and migration and the Good Friday Agreement.
“Anyone who is proposing to renegotiate the Good Friday Agreement is not serious.”
Reform UK describes its “operation restoring justice” as a five-year emergency programme to detain and deport illegal migrants and deter future arrivals that the party would enact if elected to government.
As well as leaving the ECHR, the party also pledged to scale up detention capacity for asylum seekers to 24,000 and secure migrant returns deals with countries like Afghanistan, Eritrea and Iran.
The party said it would seek to deport 600,000 asylum seekers in its first Parliament.
