Keir Starmer

In the aftermath of the second world war, nations came together to say 'never again.' They established the United Nations and agreed a simple set of universal standards of decency for mankind to cling to: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Rights compliance helps effective outcomes, it does not hinder them. That should come as no surprise because the 'human rights' in the Human Rights Act are the rights adopted in the aftermath of the horrors of the second world war, and are designed to protect all of us from oppression.

If you go into a police station and report a burglary the first question is not: 'Are you telling the truth?' If you are the victim of a sexual offence, very often in the past that has been the first question.

My parents didn't have the opportunities they would have liked, but they didn't complain about that because they thought they were part of a society where the next generation would have those opportunities.

I think most people accept that it is necessary to have some surveillance in a democratic society. I think most people accept that it's important to have limits and clear safeguards on that.

Labour has repeatedly emphasised that in order to avoid a cliff edge for our economy there will need to be a time-limited transitional period between our exit from the E.U. and the new lasting relationship we build with our European partners.

I'm absolutely fine with the rough and tumble of politics.

The pursuit of an extreme Brexit cannot come at the cost of peace in Northern Ireland.

To state that lethal force should not be used without a proper legal justification is to state the obvious.

In the absence of honesty from the Conservative party leadership, it is Labour's duty to spell out the very real consequences of a no-deal Brexit. It is also our duty to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent it.

When I was director of public prosecutions, from 2008 to 2013, I had a first-rate counter-terrorism team, who worked closely with the police and the security and intelligence services to defeat and disrupt terrorism.

The Chilcot report is damning. It exposes a litany of failures over a long period, including reliance on flawed intelligence assessments, lack of planning and insufficient foresight of obvious consequences. But the report also exposes a chilling lack of rigour and a political culture of deference.

It will be increasingly difficult to keep Scotland as a part of the U.K. I hope that doesn't happen, but everyone knows David Cameron has put that at risk.

We were right to say from the outset that E.U. citizens should not be treated as bargaining chips but should have their rights guaranteed immediately. We were right to call on the government to publish a plan for Brexit.

Surveillance legislation fit for the 21st century, which strikes the right balance between privacy, security and democracy is a prize worth fighting for, and Labour will work constructively with the government to achieve it.

For far too long, victims' rights have been discussed only in the context of sentencing. Sentencing is very important, but the debate obscures something much more fundamental: most victims have so little faith in our criminal justice system that they do not access it at all.

A no deal Brexit would be a complete failure by the government to negotiate for Britain.

We must stand up for the principle of parliamentary democracy and not allow the government's failure in the Brexit process to be a licence for the U.K. to crash out of the E.U. without an agreement.

Just when we need a strong government, what do we see? Division. Chaos. And failure. No credible plan for Brexit, no solution to prevent a hard border in Ireland and no majority in Parliament for the Chequers proposals.

Access to our civil courts has been severely restricted by the combination of: the removal of legal aid from some cases based on their type, not their merit; a high financial threshold for the receipt of legal aid in other cases; and a failure to deliver a safety net for vulnerable individuals by the exceptional funding arrangements.