More support for staying in ECHR than leaving, poll suggests
Nearly half of the UK public support staying in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), almost twice the proportion who say the country should leave the treaty, new polling has suggested.
A survey conducted by Savanta for Amnesty International asked 2,099 adults in the UK their position on the ECHR as it marks its 75th anniversary and found more respondents backed remaining in the convention.
The poll comes as political debate surrounds the ECHR in relation to immigration cases, including calls to quit it by the Conservatives and Reform UK.
Some 1,009 (48%) of respondents believed the UK should continue to be a member of the convention while 538 (26%) said the UK should withdraw, according to the poll seen by the PA news agency.
A further 552 people (26%) answered “don’t know”.
Meanwhile, 1,636 people – nearly eight in 10 (78%)- believed rights and protections should be permanent, and it should not be up to the government of the day to reduce people’s rights.
Amnesty International UK’s human rights legal protections campaign manager Tom Morrison said: “The polling could not be clearer: people value their rights and they do not trust politicians to mark their own homework.
“Seventy-five years ago, in the aftermath of war and atrocity, a generation resolved that ‘Never Again’ must mean something real.
“Human rights were not designed for fair weather. They were built for the storms, for the moments of populism, institutional failure and authoritarian creep. Exactly the sort of challenges we face today.
“Honouring the ECHR is not about the past. It’s about protecting people now and safeguarding what future generations will inherit.”
According to the poll, 266 (73%) of 365 respondents who are likely to support Labour at the next election said the UK should stay in the ECHR, compared to 44 (12%) who think the country should withdraw.
Of those likely to vote Conservative, 111 (43%) of 256 backed remaining in the treaty, compared to 93 (36%) who said to leave and 52 (20%) who did not know.
The poll suggested Reform voters were more likely to support quitting the ECHR, as 265 (61%) of 438 respondents said to withdraw and 106 (24%) wanted to remain.
The Government has said it will not leave the European treaty but ministers are reviewing the human rights law to make it easier to deport people who have no right to be in the UK.
Deportation attempts
Several deportation attempts have been halted by how article eight of the ECHR, the right to private and family life, has been interpreted in UK law.
Article three, which prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, is also being looked at in immigration and extradition cases.
The Conservatives have promised to leave the ECHR if they win the next election, saying that “lawfare”, including lawyers using the ECHR to stop deportation attempts, has “frustrated the country’s efforts to secure its borders and deport those with no right to be here”.
Reform UK has also said it would leave the treaty as part of plans to tackle immigration.
Party leader Nigel Farage’s bid to bring forward legislation for the UK to leave the ECHR, which he said was “unfinished business” of Brexit, was blocked by MPs last Wednesday.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey opposed the move, saying the ECHR protects “the very people who need it most”.
Russia
Critics of quitting the treaty also say it would jeopardise the Good Friday Agreement, which was signed as part of the peace process to end the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and strip UK citizens of fundamental rights.
The only other country to leave the ECHR is Russia, which was expelled in 2022 after its invasion of Ukraine.
The treaty was first signed on November 4, 1950, and came into force on September 3, 1953.
It was the first legally-binding instrument to guarantee certain rights and freedoms set out under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Some 46 states remain signatories.
Harm
Naomi Smith, chief executive of the campaign group Best for Britain, said: “The public have seen the harm leaving European institutions has done to Britain and they recognise calls to leave the ECHR are just asking for even more damage: to all our rights, our freedoms, and our international reputation.
“We must not allow Reform UK and the Tories’ misleading attempts to demonise human rights protections to gain media traction when, in truth, the public strongly wants to maintain the high standards which keep us all safer.”
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That is pathetic, more evidence of the Fat Shanks Effect…
The support for leaving is mainly from racists and certain donors that want to gut the UK. We cannot challenge when we do not have any rights.
And farage and kemi will do that in a heartbeat to look after their donors, not the people that live here.
Which rights do YOU want removed. Next time that Welsh blowhard spouts this is the only way, pin him down, which ones will you remove and why.
https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/d/echr/Convention_ENG
We need to add rights. Like the rght to free speech. The ECHR is not protecting it in the UK, is it. The way to do this, before any other move, is to get a new Bill of Rights, and lead the world. After a 2026 debate nationally. Get a Welsh one, quicker than waiting for England. The new one will be better than the ECHR so…….
What free speech are you missing? What are you afraid to say? I have free speech rights, just that I don’t say hateful racists comments etc.
So, what do you want to say that you think you cannot?
Wales needs something as strong as the US 1st Amendment and we haven’t got it. It is widely said that people feel they have to self-censor. Is this incorrect? We can debate all this in a new body, an All-Wales Constitutional Convention. This can draft a new Wales Bill of Rights. Which will be based on 2020s perceptions, not 1945 ones.
What do you feel you cannot say?
Seen the US recently? Where the president now wants you jailed for saying the truth.
So come on, what do you want to say you feel you are not allowed to. Lets test it here.
Reform are keen to leave the ECHR as they believe it will allow borders to be strengthened without interference.
UK has only 1 land border.
That is on the island of Ireland.
Jointly controlled
Treaty bound to keep open and no mandate to close.
Meanwhile the ECHR are hard wired into the Anglo Irish agreement as arbiters in any border dispute
Leaving the ECHR wont change that role
If the UK chooses to unilateraly ignore the ECHR involvement
That would set back Anglo Irish relations a 100years
A few other reasons farage wants this. Farage has a lot of powerful people backing him and looking to carve up the UK. They know our rights can make it difficult. So for example remove the right for unions and union action, bye bye workers rights and pay guards. Health care can be gutted. fracking and gas extraction no safeguards etc. etc. You dont have rights makes it easier to do all the things farage will do and he can do it quicker than trump. We are more exposed and ECHR is a safety net we need. Not forgetting the… Read more »
Yes indeed
And there we are. farage today wants to cut min wage.
There are laws in place that need to change. It is against the law to carry a plank of wood in a London Street. It is illegal to fly a kite, A taxi driver has to ask his passenger if he has the plage. Laws need to change. We must have laws that suit the current situation. ECHR is unsuitable. New laws can provide what is required without the hideous loop holes
Which bits of the ECHR upset you.
Exactly which laws will leaving the ECHR effect?
The ECHR was Churchill’s creation. Designed so that history does not repeat itself. If you want to be in the same category as Russia and Belarus then feel free to move there.