ATTORNEY GENERAL Richard Hermer KC warned today that populist politicians are threatening working-class people’s legal protections.

In his most political intervention yet against the likes of Nigel Farage and Robert Jenrick, he said: “If you can’t trust your case will be heard, or heard fairly, or if your fundamental rights are taken away, it is working-class people who will pay the price.”

Reform UK and the Tories have increasingly attacked the legal system recently, with a judge criticising the shadow justice secretary Mr Jenrick earlier this month for making “ill-thought-through” social media comments about a murder trial a week after it had begun.

Reform MP Richard Tice has, meanwhile, endorsed vigilante-style gangs patrolling the streets, prompting accusations he was undermining the police and rule of law.

A Reform council leader also referred to a man awaiting trial as “the criminal” at a Reform press conference last month, despite him not yet having been convicted of any crime.

Party leader Mr Farage insisted it was “good” that the council leader had become “slightly emotional” when questioned on whether contempt laws had been broken.

Labour, however, has faced criticism too for watering down proposals in the New Deal for Working People within its Employment Rights Bill — the government's flagship workers’ rights legislation.

Speaking at a Labour conference fringe event hosted by the UCL Policy Institute and More in Common, Lord Hermer said: “The rule of law is under threat from populists, whose ineffective solutions would harm working-class people.

“They are attempting to kick away the support net for ordinary people, who use our legal and judicial system to right significant wrongs.”

It comes weeks after the government’s top legal adviser said that the use of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) must be looked at in the face of populist attacks on human rights laws.

He told the Lords constitution committee on the ECHR that nothing effective and sensible will be “off the table” to deal with small boat crossings and a largely “broken” immigration system.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said that the “balance” between human rights and secure borders “isn’t in the right place at the moment.”