Hold a referendum on leaving the European Court of Human Rights

We want the government to give our population the right to decide if we are to leave the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). We think it is antiquated and not fit for the current world we live in.

We want it to be replaced with a British Court of Human Rights. We think the government should give the British population the right to choose what matters to our people in our country and what our rules on human rights should be.

The European Convention on Human Rights was formed in the wake of the Second World War, partly in response to the Holocaust and other horrors inflicted across Nazi-occupied Europe, and partly in reaction to the rise of totalitarian governments across the post-War Soviet bloc. British politicians and lawyers were among the chief architects of the Convention, and the UK was one of the first States to ratify it. We remain fully committed to protecting human rights both domestically and internationally as the essential underpinning of the liberties and democratic values that we all enjoy, and the ECHR plays an important role in that.

Our membership of the ECHR also facilitates and strengthens international co-operation on areas ranging from security to irregular migration. It is one of the foundations of peace and stability in Northern Ireland through its role in the Good Friday Agreement, it underpins law enforcement and judicial cooperation via the EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement, and is also an important pillar of the devolution settlements. Since its introduction, the ECHR has made a positive difference to the lives and rights of those in the United Kingdom, including its role in the abolition of corporal punishment, ending the ban on LGBT+ people serving in the armed forces, and the continued abolition of the death penalty.

One of the ECHR’s most important provisions is the duty on states to protect an individual’s right to life. The families of the 97 football fans who lost their lives in the 1989 Hillsborough disaster relied on that right as they campaigned to obtain a new inquest, which concluded that the fans were unlawfully killed. Victims of the taxi-cab rapist John Worboys also used the ECHR to claim successfully that the Met Police had failed to investigate Worboys’ crimes effectively and had thereby breached their ECHR rights to protection against ill-treatment.

While the ECHR has played an important role in protecting the rights of UK citizens in the past, it is also true that no set of rules or multilateral institution is perfect; and neither the ECHR nor the European Court of Human Rights should be treated as impervious to change. Indeed, during the UK’s presidency of the Council of Europe in 2012, member states adopted a substantial package of reforms to the ECHR. That included reviewing the way we interpret ECHR provisions that impact asylum and immigration decisions in UK domestic law.

The Government’s 2025 Immigration White Paper (Restoring Control over the Immigration System) committed to bring forward legislation to strengthen the public interest test to make it clear that Parliament needs to be able to control our country’s borders and take back control of who comes to, and stays in the UK, striking the right balance between individual rights and the wider public interest. The government will publish details of a major package of reform to the asylum system before the end of the year, including details of proposed changes to the implementation of the ECHR in the immigration system.

We believe that those reforms can be introduced to deliver our migration and criminal justice priorities without having to leave the ECHR, and this will remain our priority over the coming period, rather than delaying those reforms and instead holding an expensive referendum on the UK’s membership of the ECHR. According to the Electoral Commission, it cost £129 million to hold the referendum on membership of the European Union in 2016, so it would cost at least the same amount to hold a new UK-wide referendum on ECHR membership now.

The Government welcomes all efforts to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of multilateral institutions, including the European Court of Human Rights. The UK continues to engage with European partners on this issue, and the Prime Minister is leading efforts to build international consensus on strengthening the Convention system. A strengthened Court and Convention system ensures a focus on the most important cases, guaranteeing human rights as an essential element of the rule of law and protecting the dignity of all.

In view of Government’s support for the ECHR, it will not support the holding of a referendum on UK membership. However, commitment to the ECHR does not mean complacency. To retain public confidence in our policies on irregular migration, asylum and criminal justice, the ECHR and other instruments must evolve to face modern challenges.

Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office