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Mary-Ann Stephenson also says it would be a ‘mistake’ to leave European Convention on Human Rights
Kate Devlin Whitehall Editor Monday 22 December 2025 00:01 GMT- Bookmark
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The “demonisation” of migrants can hurt UK citizens and make their lives “very, very difficult”, the new chair of Britain's equalities watchdog has warned.
Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson said those from ethnic minorities were being affected as she also warned against the “mistake” of leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), a policy backed by Reform UK and the Conservatives.
Nearly 250 refugee charities called for a move away from the “demonising language of the past” as they condemned the anti-migrant violence of last August, which saw rioters storm hotels housing asylum seekers.
Protests outside an asylum hotel in Rotherham (Getty Images)Dr Stephenson said: "I think it's really important that we have honesty in the way that we talk about human rights, and that we also have a recognition that the demonisation of migrants, the creating this idea that migration causes huge risks for the country can make the lives not just of migrants to the UK, but of ethnic minority UK citizens, very, very difficult."
She hit out at what she said was a "real risk of people using, quite often, cases where human rights arguments were made in court but were not successful", in an interview with the Press Association.
She pointed to research from the University of Oxford earlier this year that highlighted "several high-profile examples of misleading coverage, including the so-called ‘chicken nuggets’ case – widely reported as the prevention of an individual's deportation on the basis of his child's dislike of foreign food, despite the decision not being based on this detail and having already been overturned".
She also highlighted positive cases of the use of ECHR, including the John Worboys black cab rapist case, in which the Supreme Court ruled that police can be held liable for serious failures in their investigations.
Both the Conservatives and Reform UK have said they would quit the ECHR as part of efforts to tackle immigration, amid claims it hampers efforts to deport illegal migrants.
The government has rejected calls to leave the treaty but ministers are reviewing human rights law to make it easier to deport people who have no right to be in the UK.
Earlier this month the head of the body that oversees the ECHR said member states had taken an "important first step” by agreeing to look at reform of the treaty to tackle migration.
Sir Keir Starmer had urged Europe’s leaders to re-examine how the major human rights treaty was interpreted to tackle illegal migration and see off the rise of the far right.
Council of Europe secretary general Alain Berset said that the treaty, which he described as a "living instrument", is possible to adapt and work will begin to adopt the new political declaration in Moldova in May 2026.
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