ECHR threat puts the fragmenting Conservative vote under further strain
James Crouch, Head of Policy & Public Affairs, looks at why Rishi Sunak’s remarks about pulling out of the ECHR might cause more problems than it solves.
Controlling illegal immigration is “more important” than membership of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), according to Rishi Sunak. The Prime Minister’s comments appear to be the latest manifestation of a strategy to win back right-wing voters, but many in the Conservative Party will be concerned at the apparent direction he is taking them in. Bluntly, there is scant evidence that this will help the government rebuild its credibility or help win back voters.
When the Prime Minister’s interview with The Sun’s Harry Cole was released, the headlines were eye-opening but also completely predictable. “Rishi Sunak ready to pull out of ECHR over Rwanda flights” or even “We’ll QUIT Eurocourt to stop boats if we have to”. We should imagine Rishi Sunak knew what he was doing when he made his comments about Rwanda and the European Convention on Human Rights, because these are the headlines they were always going to get.
The road he is going down comes up against three pretty substantial problems. First, it doesn’t seem to be that much of a vote winner. Two, it doesn’t look like it will even work amongst his target audience. Three, it will make it even harder for the party to win over voters that matter more.
It’s not as popular as Sunak might think
For the past couple of years, we have been tracking the popularity of leaving the ECHR. In our latest Opinium poll with The Observer we found that almost half (48%) of voters supported staying signed up to the European Convention on Human Rights. Only a quarter (26%) thought we should no longer be signed up to the ECHR, and 27% were not sure either way.
Not only is the idea currently rejected two-to-one by the public, but that opinion has been consistent over time. When we asked the same question in late 2022 shortly after Rishi Sunak came to office the gap was essentially the same: 50% wanted to stay signed up the Convention, 26% wanted to leave it.
All the public opinion evidence points to the British electorate being disinterested in the government leaving another Europe-wide institution, and nothing in the Prime Minister’s various immigration policy crises have persuaded them otherwise.
Could it win back Reform voters?
If the aim of this sort of headline is to win back Conservative voters that have switched to Reform – which we must assume it is – the simple question is whether or not it will work.
On the face of it, you can entirely see why Sunak might think bashing a foreign court could help him on his right flank. Three quarters (73%) of the voters the Tories are losing to Reform would back leaving the ECHR. If the Prime Minister did come out against the Convention, he really would be giving these voters what they want.
However, the government’s problem is not one of positioning. Still, the Conservatives’ repeated response in the face of losing voters to Reform is to re-position. If it was a simple case of having big bold policy announcements that attract Reform voters back, they already have them: 86% of Conservative-to-Reform switchers support the government’s current Rwanda policy.
What the Conservative Party lacks amongst these voters is trust to deliver. While 86% of voters lost to Reform might support the current administration’s flagship policy, only 8% trust a Sunak Conservative government to handle immigration best. A crushing 86% trust neither major party. Nothing the Prime Minister can really say at this stage is going to undo a fundamental gap in faith to deliver on a scale like that.
The bigger problems this causes
The only thing worse than a strategy that doesn’t achieve the thing it is meant to achieve is one that that makes all your other objectives harder to achieve as well. While tacking to leaving the ECHR might not succeed in winning back Reform voters, it is dangerous route to go down when you consider the relative position of the two major parties.
If we return to the simple popularity point. The Conservatives, already at rock bottom, should avoid putting its surviving electoral coalition under any more strain. Yes, current Conservative voters give the idea tentative support (45% would support leaving the ECHR, while 32% want to remain signed up to it). But current Labour voters want to remain in the ECHR by more than four-to-one (65% remain signed up, only 15% leave). This is an issue which only divides the Conservatives’ dwindling base, and almost unites Labour’s rather broad coalition. It’s simply not good politics.
We can be even more specific than that. Amongst the former Conservative voters that have switched to Labour, 56% want to remain signed up to the ECHR while only 28% want to leave it. The Prime Minister is saying the wrong thing to the type of voters that will end up unseating Tory MPs.
We have of course not had the time or space here to delve into the policy merits, whether it would achieve what the Prime Minister wants, or even outline critiques of the international legal framework on rights that might have decent levels of public support. More importantly, neither has Rishi Sunak. At this stage of the game, he is only pulling apart the fraying strands of his electoral coalition with little prospect of any payback.
As originally seen in Lansons-Opinium Political Capital.
Good points. An additional consideration: the One Nation group in the Parliamentary Party seems fairly agreed that leaving the ECHR would be a bad idea. However most of these were against leaving the EU and then in favour of a "soft" Brexit and disliked the Rwanda plan. If Sunak presses ahead with a plan to leave the ECHR then there will be a lot of adverse comment. Of course as this lot took the Johnson shilling and then for all the huffing and puffing only one voted FOT the Lords amendments on the Rwanda Bill.
So what we have is a recipe for endless comments in the media on a divided party followed by the usual display of spinelessness by Damian Green and his like thus ensuring a surge in Lib Dem votes in the "blue wall" as decent people decide they cannot trust so called "moderates".