Seventy-five years ago, Britain helped shape a new Europe out of the ruins of war. Our lawyers drafted the European Convention on Human Rights, inspired by Churchill’s vision of peace built on dignity, fairness, and democracy.
This week, as we mark that anniversary, the world feels worryingly familiar. A belligerent Russia is again waging war on the European continent. Authoritarianism is rising. Disinformation corrodes public trust. And yet, some here at home argue that the answer is to turn our back on the very institutions and treaties that safeguard our freedom – the Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
The Convention is not an abstract legal text. It underpins the Good Friday Agreement, giving people in Northern Ireland an independent arbiter of justice. It secured justice for the Hillsborough families. It protects freedom of expression – including for the newspapers that most often criticise it. To abandon or dilute our commitment would not be an act of sovereignty, but an act of self-harm.
I have to declare an interest – I proudly serve as a UK delegate to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the body which oversees the ECHR. From the inside, I can tell you that, far from being a talking shop, it is a forum where Britain still leads. In recent months, Lord German has urged protection for journalists in Gaza. Lord Keen has proposed an international claims commission to compensate Ukraine. And my colleagues have worked on issues from ageing populations to AI ethics and media freedom.
This is Britain at our best – working with others to uphold democracy and justice, not retreating behind our borders. The Council of Europe has led global progress on abolishing the death penalty, exposing human rights abuses, and defending democracy. It expelled Russia and demanded accountability for its leaders. That is leadership in action – and Britain helped make it possible.
Much of the current debate around the ECHR is fuelled by misinformation. The Convention says nothing about immigration or asylum. There is no “right to asylum” in its text. And since the Human Rights Act came into force, rulings against the UK have dropped from an average of 17 a year to fewer than four. In 2024, there was just one – and it upheld press freedom.
Critics point to Article 8, the right to family life, as an obstacle to deportations. In reality, only about three per cent of appeals succeed on ECHR grounds. The rest proceed unhindered. Yet myths persist, repeated by those who should know better. As a recent Oxford University report showed, much of the public debate around the ECHR has been distorted by misreporting – and those distortions are driving dangerous policy.
We have seen this play before. David Cameron’s attempt to appease Eurosceptics by “renegotiating” Britain’s EU membership led directly to Brexit. Reopening our relationship with the ECHR risks the same fate – with far higher moral stakes.
Britain’s word still carries weight in Europe. If we start unpicking the Convention, we signal that human rights are negotiable, that the rule of law is conditional. That is not the Britain our grandparents fought for.
The ECHR is not a foreign imposition. It is a British creation – a legacy of our leadership and moral conviction. To stay true to that legacy, the British Government must draw a line and defend our place in it.
As a human rights lawyer once wrote in 1999: “We should be proud of the European Convention on Human Rights – proud because we helped to create it and because it helps to keep us civilised.” Those words were Keir Starmer’s.
Our task now is to honour them – to lead, not leave.
The UK must stand firmly for human rights
