Nigel Farage’s long-standing campaign to take Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights returned to Westminster this week — and ended as expected.
His private member’s bill calling for withdrawal from the ECHR was defeated in Parliament by 154 votes to 96.
It was, however, a vote more symbolic than decisive. Neither of the main parties whipped their MPs, and the sparse attendance told its own story. This was less a test of political strength than an airing of grievances — a theatrical reminder that the question still nags at the edges of Britain’s constitutional debate.
The numbers, though meaningless in legislative terms, hint at something deeper. While the political class may be weary of reopening another European front, public patience with the Strasbourg court’s interference is wearing thin.
Farage has once again given voice to an instinct that resonates with many voters: that Britain, the birthplace of common law and liberty, should not be beholden to unelected judges on the continent. Yet his chosen remedy — leaving the Convention itself — misses the point entirely. The problem is not the Convention. It is the Court that enforces it.
The European Convention on Human Rights is not, as Farage implies, some alien charter imposed by Brussels bureaucrats. It is a largely British creation. Conceived in 1950 with Winston Churchill’s blessing, and drafted largely by British jurists, it drew heavily on this country’s own legal traditions.
Its text reflects principles we have cherished for centuries — the right to life, liberty, fair trial, and freedom of expression. These were not foreign imports but extensions of our own constitutional legacy, stretching from Magna Carta to the Bill of Rights.
Nor is the Convention a European Union instrument. It belongs to the Council of Europe, a separate body founded after the Second World War to safeguard democracy and the rule of law. Leaving it would do nothing to distance Britain from Brussels — only to place us alongside Russia, the one major power to abandon the ECHR system altogether after invading Ukraine.
Where Farage — and a growing number of Britons — have a valid grievance is with the European Court of Human Rights, based in Strasbourg. This institution, often confusingly referred to by the same acronym (ECHR), was established to interpret and enforce the Convention’s articles. Over the decades, it has evolved from a guardian of liberty into something closer to a political actor.
What began as a tribunal to prevent tyranny and torture has gradually morphed into a supranational bench pronouncing on issues that belong within national sovereignty: immigration policy, deportations, criminal sentencing, and social welfare.
The pattern is familiar. British ministers pass a law, the courts uphold it, and Strasbourg then intervenes. In 2012, the Court blocked the deportation of the radical cleric Abu Qatada on the grounds that Jordan might use evidence obtained under torture. More recently, a single Strasbourg judge halted the first flight carrying asylum seekers to Rwanda — a policy duly approved by Parliament and validated by domestic courts.
To many voters, such interventions confirm the suspicion that Britain is still being governed, at least in part, from overseas. The Brexit vote was, among other things, a rejection of precisely that notion.
This brings us to the paradox at the heart of Farage’s argument. Remaining within the European Convention obliges Britain to accept the Court’s authority. Leaving it, however, would strip the UK of a framework it helped to write — and one that underpins its moral authority abroad.
There is a clear alternative: remain a signatory to the Convention, but withdraw from the jurisdiction of the Strasbourg Court. Such a move would not erode human rights in Britain; it would reinforce them under domestic authority, and this can be achieved, I would argue.
Canada, New Zealand and other liberal democracies recognise international conventions on rights without surrendering judicial sovereignty to foreign tribunals. Britain could do the same. The Human Rights Act 1998, which incorporated the Convention into domestic law, could be revised to make Britain’s Supreme Court the final arbiter of human rights cases.
This would restore the balance between upholding universal values and preserving national sovereignty — the equilibrium that the original drafters intended before judicial activism clouded the picture.
Farage’s instincts are not entirely misplaced. His call to reclaim control over British justice taps into a genuine national sentiment. But his focus is misdirected. The Convention, far from being a European shackle, is a British achievement — a legacy of Churchill’s vision for post-war Europe.
What Britain needs is not rejection, but reclamation: the restoration of democratic control over how those principles are applied. Leaving the Strasbourg Court would achieve that. It would allow Britain to enforce rights domestically, through its own traditions and institutions, rather than under the shadow of an international bench.
Critics insist that such a step would damage Britain’s reputation abroad. Yet our record speaks for itself. We abolished slavery before most nations had even debated it. We pioneered parliamentary democracy and the rule of law. Our judiciary is admired the world over for its independence.
Far from isolating us, reclaiming sovereignty would reaffirm Britain’s role as a standard-bearer of liberty under law — but on its own terms.
For the current Labour Government this debate is both a political risk and a strategic opportunity. The Rwanda debacle exposed the fragility of Britain’s ability to enforce its own immigration laws under the current system. Every attempt to remove illegal entrants becomes a legal quagmire, entangled in injunctions and appeals citing Strasbourg precedent.
The Government have hinted at reform but always stop short of decisive action. Today’s vote, with its modest turnout and unwhipped benches, was another reminder of that hesitation. Yet this issue should not disappear. If the Government is serious about restoring control — the promise that defined Brexit — it cannot ignore the Strasbourg question forever.
For Labour, meanwhile, there is a choice between defending an outdated internationalism or embracing a modern, democratic approach to human rights rooted in national accountability. To defend liberty at home is not to reject universal values; it is to reclaim them.
In truth, the debate over the ECHR is not about compassion versus sovereignty, nor Left versus Right. It is about where ultimate authority resides.
Britain can and should remain committed to the Convention’s principles — the right to fair trial, free expression, and individual dignity. What it must no longer tolerate is the creeping authority of a court that has drifted from its original purpose into the realm of policy-making.
Nigel Farage’s bill may have failed, but the frustration it channels remains real. His diagnosis — that British law should not be subordinate to a foreign court — is sound. His prescription — to quit the entire Convention — is not. In any case, the UK is also a signatory to the U.N. Convention on Human Rights, which differs little from the EU Convention.
The solution lies in precision, not populism. Britain should reaffirm the values it helped to define, while freeing itself from judicial overreach.
By keeping the Convention but leaving the Court, Britain could restore both its sovereignty and its moral authority — thus proving that liberty is safest when it is protected at home.
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