James Crouch: Polling suggests the Conservatives should campaign on saving the ECHR from itself

James Crouch is head of policy and public affairs research at Opinium.

There is something oddly resilient about support for the European Convention on Human Rights: for a treaty often at the centre of tabloid firestorms, the public at large are surprisingly reticent to leave it.

Considering the volume of negative coverage, the fact that nearly half the public still back staying signed up to the Convention should make the Conservative Party stop and think carefully about its next move.

This doesn’t mean the Party can ignore the very real challenge it faces on the political right, but it is also essential to keep onside the many Conservative voters who are uncomfortable with such a change. So what can the Party do?

The answer lies not in throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but in measured, conservative reform. The Conservative Party can lead the charge on a grown-up, politically serious campaign to reform the ECHR: one that makes clear it is acting on the public’s behalf to prevent the abuse of a core pillar of Britain’s rights tradition, and shows that only the Conservatives are serious about fixing what’s gone wrong.

The public is frustrated – but not ready to leave

Opinium has been polling views on the ECHR since 2022, and what’s striking is how little opinion has shifted. In July 2025, 48 per cent of the public said they wanted to remain signed up to the ECHR, with just 30 per cent supporting leaving it (three years ago these numbers were 50 per cent and 26 per cent respectively).

Even during periods of heightened media scrutiny over immigration or deportation cases, most people remain broadly unconvinced that we should withdraw from the Convention altogether.

This is especially remarkable when you consider how widespread concern over immigration has been during the same period. Quite simply, the public don’t really have a clear enough grasp of how leaving the ECHR could help the UK manage irregular or regular immigration.

The Conservative Party is very reliant on a liberal core

That creates a genuine political headache for the Conservative Party. The 2019 Conservative electoral coalition has always been more sceptical of the ECHR than the public at large. In 2022, half (49 per cent) of 2019 Conservative voters wanted to leave it. That figure has now risen to 56 per cent.

But support for staying signed up to it has risen as well, from 26 per cent to 30 per cent. In other words, opinions have hardened, not softened, and they have polarised in opposite directions.

What’s more, since the 2024 general election, the Conservative voter base has further narrowed and concentrated, thanks to losses on both the left and the right. The result, after further bleeding of voters to Reform, is a party where “current voters” are now almost evenly split: 41 per cent want to leave the ECHR, 40 per cent want to remain signed up.

That split makes it difficult, if not dangerous, to simply campaign on withdrawal because the party is much more dependent on a diehard core of more liberal Tories than it was before.

And yet, doing nothing is not an option either. The party has been shedding support to Reform at pace, and it has to be interested in winning some of them back. But the key is to offer something credible, not just eye-grabbing; something principled, not just performative.

Leaving the ECHR is not a silver bullet for controlling immigration

Too often, the debate over the ECHR has been collapsed into a single question: does it stop us deporting illegal migrants? It’s an important concern, but it’s not persuasive enough. When we asked 2019 Conservative voters whether they thought leaving the ECHR would reduce the number of small boats arriving, just 39 per cent thought it would. A similar number (41 per cent) thought it would make no difference.

If the party wants to reframe the ECHR debate in a way that brings people with it, immigration is probably the wrong place to start – or, at the very least, it can’t be the only thing the party talks about.

The real political opportunity lies in a different public concern: that the ECHR is being used, even abused, by criminals to avoid accountability. It’s the rock-solid political wrong: it’s unfair and unjust.

Abuse by criminals is a far more resonant concern

This is where consensus reigns across the political spectrum. Among 2019 Conservatives, nearly half (48 per cent) think the ECHR is “often” used by individuals with criminal convictions to avoid legal consequences, and another 23 per cent think it is “sometimes” used this way. Only seven per cent think it’s rarely or never abused.

And this isn’t just a Tory view. Among the public at large, 51 per cent believe the ECHR is “often” or “sometimes” used by those trying to dodge deportation or justice. This perception is widely shared, and it’s where an anti-ECHR agenda could gain real political traction.

Here, then, is the way forward: frame the campaign not as a retreat from rights, but as a reinforcement of them. Show that the Convention, in its current form, is being used in ways that frustrate the rule of law and the delivery of justice. Argue that reform is needed to protect both the integrity of our legal system and the credibility of human rights themselves.

Crime, justice, and fairness are the terrain where Conservatives win in an argument on the ECHR. Big abstract arguments about a Britain unconstrained by the Convention are unlikely to work, but clear, concrete cases that outrage ordinary people -and why they must stop – could be a great campaigning asset for the party.

Finding a meaningful way to reform it

As I’ve mentioned, simple withdrawal from the ECHR has political risks for the party. But there is overwhelming support for reforming it. Four in five (81 per cent) 2019 Conservative voters think the Convention needs reform. Even among the far smaller number still intending to vote Conservative today, 74 per cent agree.

Even most Labour voters agree the ECHR needs changes. Of course, reforming it could mean anything… but that’s sort of the point.

This opens up political space for a reform agenda that can bridge the party’s internal divides. On the one hand, the Conservatives can call for unilateral domestic legal changes; this would appeal to those on the right concerned about sovereignty and crime. On the other hand, these changes can be argued as preparing the ground for the UK to lead multilateral efforts to reform the Convention with our international partners.

It also means the Conservatives can make the argument that Labour will never get round to doing this and are letting the rot set in. This is an approach more likely to reassure liberal-leaning Conservatives who want the UK to uphold its international commitments.

In other words, this doesn’t have to be a binary choice between leaving and doing nothing. What the Conservative Party needs is a dual-track approach: unilateral action at home, and multilateral leadership abroad.

Getting serious, not histrionic

If the party is to regain momentum on the right without alienating its liberal Tory core, it must sound serious, not histrionic. No vague threats to ‘rip it up’, while also not pretending the issue doesn’t matter. Instead, what’s needed is a credible campaign that takes the public’s concerns seriously and frames reform as part of a broader Conservative commitment to law and order, justice, and effective rights.

Done well, this could turn a tricky issue into a political strength. Done poorly, it could drive even more voters away.

So let’s be clear: the goal here is not to make the ECHR the enemy of Britain. It is to argue that we must protect it from the risk of abuse by criminals. That is the message that can unite the Conservative coalition and show that only this party is serious about getting it right.

See the full data tables from the latest Opinium conducted amongst 2,050 UK adults between 23-25 July 2025.