Do British people want to leave the ECHR? Here’s what the polls say
Once a minor idea, the UK’s withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) has become a defining issue for political parties. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, who previously opposed leaving, has now said the Conservatives will take Britain out of the convention if they win the election.
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has arguably made its exit from the ECHR central to its political identity. Even the Labor government has said it could reform the contract or change the way UK courts interpret the law.
The secession case is often framed as a “sovereignty” case, especially in relation to immigration laws and deportation powers.
Politicians argue that the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights, which enforces the ECHR, has overridden the “will of the British people” and that democratic legitimacy requires withdrawal.
But the evidence shows that “the people” do not actually want to leave.
We examined more than a dozen opinion polls conducted by pollsters such as YouGov since 2013. First, in the same year, it was revealed that 48 percent were in favor of withdrawing from the ECHR and 35 percent were in favor of remaining in the ECHR. A year later the public was evenly split (41% leave, 38% remain) and in 2016, following the Brexit referendum, 42% said Britain should remain in the ECHR and 35% wanted to leave. Since then the balance has steadily shifted towards stay.
While half of those surveyed said the UK should remain a member until 2023, only a quarter preferred to leave the ECHR. A poll conducted in June 2025 showed similar results: 51% in favor of remain, 27% in favor of leave and 22% undecided.
The latest YouGov data, published on 8 October, revealed that 46 per cent of the public are against leaving the ECHR and 29 per cent say the UK should withdraw.
Even though polls link the ECHR to issues such as deportation to Rwanda, public support for withdrawal has not exceeded 38% since 2014.
Conversely, support for withdrawal fell when participants were presented with more nuanced options. In a 2024 poll, when respondents were presented with alternatives such as “Always stick to the ECHR, even if it disappoints Parliament” or “Stick to the ECHR but give Parliament the final say,” outright support for leaving was just 16%. With such options, 66% supported some form of continued engagement with the ECHR.
The poll also makes it clear that Conservative and Reform voters are much more in favor of leaving the ECHR than Labor and Liberal Democrat voters. In a YouGov poll on this issue in June, 54% of Conservative voters and 72% of Reform voters were in favor of leaving the ECHR, while 75% of Labor and Liberal Democrat voters were against leaving.
The general results from the surveys are supported by parliamentary petitions. Since 2023, at least seven petitions have called for withdrawal from the ECHR or a referendum on membership. None came even close to the 100,000 signatures needed for the debate.
The newest one, which remains open until January 2026, had fewer than 19,000 signatures at the time of this writing. In contrast, a petition against digital ID cards quickly collected 2.8 million signatures.
The evidence is clear: withdrawal requires neither majority support nor political urgency.
The paradox of popular democracy
According to its critics, the ECHR embodies foreign intervention. Strasbourg judges are seen as overriding Westminster’s authority and undermining sovereignty. This framing is highly effective in political campaigns, especially when associated with emotional issues such as asylum or terrorism.
But if democracy means following the “will of the people,” the evidence does not support this claim. In the last decade, only a quarter of voters supported leaving the ECHR.
Even if public opinion changes, there is a deeper question: Should such constitutional decisions be based on floating majorities?
The ECHR was created after the Second World War precisely to prevent democracy from turning into uncontrolled majority rule. Britain played a leading role in drafting this legislation, ensuring that popular sovereignty was balanced with robust rights.
This is why the protection of human rights is deliberately anti-majoritarian, protecting individuals and minorities from the excesses of majority impulses.
About the authors
Jacques Hartmann is Professor of International Law and Human Rights at the University of Dundee.
Edzia Carvalho is Lecturer in Politics at the University of Dundee.
Samuel White is Senior Lecturer in the School of Business and Creative Industries at the University of the West of Scotland.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read original article.
But today’s political rhetoric often reverses this logic. By using the language of popular sovereignty to justify withdrawing from the ECHR, despite evidence that the public does not support it, politicians risk undermining the stability that these rights are designed to protect. This is a particularly serious concern for the United Kingdom, which lacks the constitutional safeguards found in many other democracies.
The majority of respondents to the surveys examined said they were “unsure” about withdrawing, ranging from 15 to 25% across all surveys. It is therefore possible that actual support for remaining on the ECHR is higher than headline polls imply.
The latest YouGov poll asked respondents how much they knew about the ECHR and found that just 5% of respondents claimed to know “a lot” about the convention, while 49% said they didn’t know much and 15% said they knew nothing at all.
Research shows that as knowledge of human rights increases, attitudes towards human rights become more positive. A 2018 investigation by the Scottish Human Rights Commission found that indifference often masks confusion rather than hostility.
The Independent Review of the Human Rights Act in 2021 reached a similar conclusion, highlighting that a better understanding of public opinion on human rights institutions strengthens support.
That’s why it’s important for people and politicians to understand that conventions like the ECHR are not just about immigrants and asylum seekers. They protect everyone’s rights on issues that affect us all, from privacy at home to fair treatment in court, freedom of expression, protection against discrimination and dignity in care.
The growing political momentum to withdraw from the ECHR is not matched by widespread demand. Instead, politicians propose to change Britain’s constitutional order in the name of “the people”, ignoring what the majority of people actually want, dismantling constitutional guarantees and democratic institutions in the process.
The lesson from post-war Europe is clear: constitutional guarantees against majority rule are not an obstacle to democracy, but one of its foundations. Giving up on these would not only place the UK alongside Russia and Belarus, the only European states outside the ECHR, but would also risk repeating the mistakes the convention was designed to prevent.
