The Trades Union Congress has warned that withdrawing from the ECHR would also amount to an attack on workers rights
Although the Conservative Party may be hoping that its draconian approach to human rights and push further to the right will prove popular with voters, polling suggests otherwise.
While Tory leader Kemi Badenoch announced this week that her party would take the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights if it wins the next election, more voters prefer the UK to remain a member of the ECHR than those who wish to leave it, a new poll has found.
The poll, carried out by YouGov, found that Britons want to remain a member of the ECHR by 46%, compared to 29% who prefer to withdraw.
The Conservative Party claims that staying in the ECHR blocks migration reform and is being used to obstruct efforts to deport foreign criminals and failed asylum seekers.
However, Badenoch has been criticised for her proposals which seek to mimic those being put forward by Reform UK, with the Prime Minister previously warning that leaving the ECHR would put the country in the same “camp” as Russia and Belarus.
“Let’s be clear: the ECHR underpins key international agreements on trade, security, migration and the Good Friday agreement. Anyone who is proposing to renegotiate the Good Friday agreement is not serious”, the government previously warned.
Thankfully the British public also prefers to remain part of the ECHR according to the latest polling, though no doubt the right will continue to whip up a moral panic over the issue, with progressives needing to make a strong argument for remaining in.
The Trades Union Congress has warned that withdrawing from the ECHR would also amount to an attack on workers rights as it ‘underpins many of the rights that protect workers in the UK’.
Through its incorporation into domestic law via the Human Rights Act, it guarantees key workers’ rights principles like:
The prohibition of slavery and forced labour
The right to a fair trial
The right to privacy and family life
Freedom of association (including the right to join a union)
Protection from discrimination
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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