Minister regrets ‘clumsy’ reference to Nazi Germany in speech

The attorney general has said he regrets “clumsy” remarks in which he compared calls for the UK to depart from international law and arguments made in 1930s Germany.

In a speech on Thursday, Lord Hermer criticised politicians who argue the UK should abandon “the constraints of international law in favour of raw power”.

He said similar claims had been made by legal theorists in Germany in the years before the Nazis came to power.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch accused him of “calling people who disagree with him Nazis,” and urged the prime minister to sack him.

A spokesperson for Lord Hermer said he rejected “the characterisation of his speech by the Conservatives”.

But they added the Labour peer “acknowledges though that his choice of words was clumsy and regrets having used this reference”.

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