To mark International Human Rights Day (10 December), Amnesty International has released new polling data showing a clear majority of people from London say they want the UK to remain part of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Respondents to the survey from across London showed strong support for human rights protections with the vast majority saying they thought it was important to be able to challenge the Government and that they felt the right to peacefully protest was valuable and that children should be educated about their rights.

The Amnesty poll, carried out by Savanta, shows that any UK withdrawal from the European Convention would not be supported by Londoners with more than half of London adults (60%) polled saying the UK should stay part of the European Convention, with only one in five (18%) saying that the UK should withdraw (22% said they didn’t know).

More than four out of five Londoners adults (87%) said they felt it was important to be able to challenge the Government if it violates people’s rights – a key protection that the European Convention helps underpin. An overwhelming majority of people from London (83%) felt that it was important to be able to peacefully protest about something they cared about, and 87% people in London thought it was important for children and young people to be taught about their rights in school and college.

The opinion poll also showed – overwhelmingly – that most people in London thought the next UK government should focus on other issues rather than any proposal to withdraw from the human rights treaty. When asked to rank the top five issues that they wanted the next government to prioritise, respondents to the poll chose tackling the cost of living crisis as and resourcing the NHS properly as their top-priority issues (50%). Fewer than one in ten (6%) people put European Convention withdrawal as a top five priority.

Amnesty’s poll comes after a year of publicised threats from high-profile politicians about the possibility of the UK leaving the Europe-wide human rights treaty, most recently following a legal defeat for the Government’s controversial Rwanda plan.

Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK’s Chief Executive, said:

“The Government should listen to the views of people in London who clearly want to keep their European Convention rights intact.

“The European Convention protects cherished freedoms like the right to be able to peacefully protest, the right to equal marriage and the right to a fair trial.

“As we’ve seen with campaigns like Hillsborough and the Stafford Hospital scandal, the European Convention allows ordinary people to challenge public bodies or the Government when things go very badly wrong.

“The Government of the day should not be able to pick and choose which rights apply, and who is entitled to them. Human rights have at their heart a principle of equality and they must apply to all people in order to be of value to any of us.

“Repeated threats from politicians to withdraw from the European Convention are undermining the UK’s reputation on the world stage.

“On top of everything else, withdrawal from the European Convention would also threaten the fragile peace in Northern Ireland which has the convention as a key element of the Good Friday Agreement.

“Constant talk of leaving the convention is damaging, dangerous and unpopular.”

Polling methodology

Between 31 August and 8 September, more than 3,600 adults across the UK were asked by polling firm Savanta what they wanted the next government to prioritise, about their main political concerns, as well as questions related to the importance of the European Convention on Human Rights. Data were weighted to be representative of the UK by age, sex, region, and social grade. For a link to the full polling data, go here.

European Convention on Human Rights

The European Convention on Human Rights has provided vital protection for people in the UK and across Europe for more than 70 years. The UK was pivotal in the convention’s creation after the Second World War and was one of the first countries to adopt it. Leaving it would be an unprecedented and extreme move. Not only would it breach the Good Friday Agreement, undermining peace in Northern Ireland, and reduce rights protections for everyone in the UK, it could lead to the unravelling of human rights protections across the continent. The only countries which have ever left the convention are Greece during military rule in the 1970s, and Russia, which was expelled after its illegal full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.