(MENAFN- The Conversation) Withdrawing the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), once a fringe idea, has become a defining issue for political parties. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, who previously opposed leaving, has now said the Conservatives will take the UK out of the convention if they win an election.

Nigel Farage's Reform UK has arguably made an ECHR exit central to its political identity . Even the Labour government has said it could reform the convention , or change how UK courts interpret the law.

The case for leaving is often framed as one of “sovereignty” , particularly in relation to immigration laws and deportation powers.

Politicians argue that the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights, which enforces the ECHR, overrides “the will of the British people” and that democratic legitimacy demands withdrawal.

But evidence shows that“the people” don't actually want to leave.

We examined more than a dozen opinion polls conducted by polling agencies, such as YouGov, since 2013. The first, that year, found 48% in favour of withdrawal and 35% in favour of remaining in the ECHR. A year later, the public was evenly split (41% leave, 38% stay), and by 2016 , following the Brexit referendum, 42% said Britain should stay in the ECHR while 35% wanted to leave. Since then, the balance has shifted steadily towards remain.

By 2023 , half of respondents said the UK should remain a member, while only around a quarter favoured leaving the ECHR. A poll from June 2025 produced similar results: 51% in favour of staying, 27% for leaving and 22% unsure.

The most recent YouGov data, published October 8 , found that 46% of the public are opposed to leaving the ECHR, and 29% say the UK should withdraw.

Even when polls tie the ECHR to issues such as deportations to Rwanda, support for withdrawal among the general public has not exceeded 38% since 2014.

Conversely, when respondents were given more nuanced options, support for withdrawal fell. In a 2024 survey , outright support for leaving was just 16% when respondents were offered alternatives such as“always abide by the ECHR even if that frustrates Parliament” or“remain committed to the ECHR but give Parliament the final word”. With such options, 66% supported some form of continued engagement with the ECHR.

What is also clear from the polling is that Conservative and Reform voters are much more in favour of leaving the ECHR than Labour and Liberal Democrats voters. In the June YouGov poll on this issue, 54% of Conservative voters and 72% of Reform voters were in favour of leaving the ECHR while 75% of Labour and Liberal Democrats voters were against leaving.

The general results from polling are reinforced by parliamentary petitions. Since 2023, at least seven petitions have called for withdrawal from the ECHR or a referendum on membership. None has come close to the 100,000 signatures required for debate.

The most recent, which remains open until January 2026, had fewer than 19,000 signatures at the time of writing. By contrast, a petition against digital ID cards quickly amassed 2.8 million signatures.

The evidence is clear: withdrawal commands neither majority support nor political urgency.

The paradox of popular democracy

For its critics, the ECHR embodies foreign interference. Strasbourg judges are cast as overriding Westminster's authority and undermining sovereignty. That framing is powerful in political campaigns, particularly when attached to emotive issues like asylum or terrorism.

But if democracy means following“the will of the people”, the evidence does not support the claim. At most, over the past decade, only a quarter of the electorate has supported leaving the ECHR.

And even if public opinion did shift, there is a deeper question: should such constitutional decisions rest on fluctuating majorities at all?

The ECHR was created after the second world war precisely to prevent democracy from collapsing into unchecked majority rule. Britain played a leading role in drafting it, ensuring that popular sovereignty would be balanced by entrenched rights.

Read more: Treaties like the ECHR protect everyone in the UK, not just migrants

That is why human rights protections are deliberately counter-majoritarian, safeguarding individuals and minorities from the excesses of majority impulses.

Yet today's political rhetoric often inverts that logic. By invoking the language of popular sovereignty to justify withdrawing from the ECHR – despite evidence that the public does not support it – politicians risk undermining the very stability those rights were designed to protect. This is an especially serious concern for the UK, which lacks the constitutional safeguards found in many other democracies.

The ECHR is often discussed in relation to the government's ability to deport people who arrive in the UK illegally. Sean Aidan Calderbank/Shutterstock

A large share of respondents to the polls examined were“unsure” about withdrawal – ranging from 15 to 25% across the surveys. It's therefore possible that true support for remaining in the ECHR may be higher than headline polls imply.

The latest YouGov survey asked respondents how much they know about the ECHR, and found just 5% of respondents claimed to know“a great deal” about the convention, while 49% said they do not know very much, and 15% said they know nothing at all.

Research shows that attitudes towards human rights grow more positive as knowledge of human rights increases. A Scottish Human Rights Commission study in 2018 found that indifference often masks confusion rather than hostility.

The Independent Review of the Human Rights Act in 2021 reached a similar conclusion, stressing that greater public understanding of human rights institutions strengthens support.

This is why it is important for people and politicians to understand that conventions like the ECHR are not just about migrants and asylum seekers. They protect the rights of everyone in matters that affect us all – from privacy at home and fair treatment in court, to freedom of speech, protection from discrimination and dignity in care .

The growing political momentum for withdrawal from the ECHR is not matched by popular demand. Instead, politicians are proposing to amend Britain's constitutional order in the name of“the people” while ignoring what a majority of people actually want, undoing constitutional safeguards and democratic institutions in the process.

The lesson of postwar Europe is clear: constitutional safeguards against majority rule are not an obstacle to democracy, but one of its foundations. To abandon them would not only place the UK alongside Russia and Belarus – the only European states outside the ECHR – but also risk repeating the very errors the convention was created to prevent.

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