Reform UK leader Nigel Farage can already claim something of a moral victory as the political row over asylum seekers deepens, amid a summer of protests. On Tuesday, Farage will detail his plans in a major speech, much of which he set out in an article for The Telegraph. Mocking both Rishi Sunak‘s pledge to “stop the boats” with the aborted Rwanda plan, as well as Sir Keir Starmer‘s promise to “smash the gangs” – only to see over 50,000 new arrivals since he took office – Farage promises far more radical action.

A Reform government, he claimed, will leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), repeal the Human Rights Act and pass the Illegal Migration (Mass Deportation) Bill, with a legal duty for the Home Secretary to remove illegal migrants. Farage knows the Establishment will be up against him and leaving the ECHR alone won’t be enough. An army of lawyers could still scupper his plans. Hence Reform will strip “the Home Office, the immigration tribunals and the higher courts of any jurisdiction to consider claims.”

This hasn’t stopped Tory grandee and former Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, from chiming in. Speaking to The Independent, Grieve warned the courts could still block mass deportations, while Farage’s plan would require cooperation from countries to which failed asylum seekers were returned.

While Farage acknowledges the menace of human rights lawyers – and will disapply the 1951 Refugee Convention, the UN Convention Against Torture, and the Council of Europe Anti-Trafficking Convention, while claiming a national emergency get-out under the Vienna Convention – will this solve the issue of so-called ‘Lefty lawyers’?

After all, Hungary and Poland are signed up to the ECHR, and they still chuck people out, no problem. Japan meanwhile is a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention yet virtually no asylum is granted by Tokyo. The difference between the UK and these countries is more cultural than legal: little wokery and very strict definitions of what constitutes a refugee.

Put crudely, Grieve’s words – irriating though they might be – may still signal a warning: the cultural power of the Left is now so deeply ingrained (Farage saw the Establishment power to stymie Brexit), can legal changes alone solve this crisis? Likely there needs to be a significant cultrural shift as well.

But here there might be hope for Farage. The mood is clearly shifting. Not only is this reflected in Reform topping the opinion polls but within the Labour Party itself. Following the court challenge over housing illegal migrants in an Epping hotel we hear that Labour-led councils are also planning legal challenges against their own government.

Labour grandee Lord Blunkett recently called for the suspension of the ECHR to allow for mass deportations. The former Home Secretary told The Times the PM needs to “grip” the issue. Meanwhile Jo White, leader of Labour’s Red Wall Caucus said: “We need to make it far more difficult for asylum seekers to want to come to this country.”

Labour MP Graham Stringet added that if it takes leaving international treaties to fix this crisis, then so be it, adding: “It will be very difficult to win the next election if we don’t solve the problem of illegal immigrants being given the right to stay.”

Finally, Labour backbencher Jonathan Brash told The Sun: “If the Government’s current measures don’t end the boat crossings, then we must go further and faster, including declaring a national emergency if necessary and closing our country to all asylum claims except for unaccompanied children.”

This is itself a victory for Farage as Labour MPs – many threatened by Reform’s rise at the next election – turn on the PM. There is also something of a victory in Home Secretary Yvette Cooper saying the government will now prevent judges from hearing appeals from rejected asylum seekers.

Frankly though the government is still tinkering around the edges even as Reform is the one shaping the agenda. Farage knows his plans require more than legal changes but a cultural shift, including in much of the media. Other countries have shown the way.

But those countries are still signed up to global treaties and agreements. The UK has sunk deep and it will require a herculean cultural shift to really turn this crisis around.