Public Opinion on Asylum and the ECHR

Do you think Britain should remain a member of the European Convention on Human Rights or should we withdraw from it? Published on 6 June 2025 → Survey conducted on 6 June 2025 on 5531 GB adults

Should remain a member 51 % Should withdraw from it 27 % Not sure 22 %

Now a new YouGov survey shows that the public are generally opposed to leaving the ECHR, with 46% saying we should remain a member compared to 29% saying we should withdraw from it – the remaining 24% are unsure.

While seven in ten of those who currently intend to vote for Reform UK back withdrawal (72%), this falls to a much lower 44% of those who back the Conservatives, although this is still the plurality preference. By contrast, 82% of current Labour voters want to remain within the Convention, as do 76% of Lib Dems and 85% of Greens.

YouGov polling for the Sunday Times on the ECHR finds that the British public is divided on the question of whether the UK should stay in (38%) or withdraw from the convention (41%), which gives the European Court of Human Rights its authority. The latest survey indicates a small movement in opinion away from leaving the convention, something that 48% supported a year ago.

Conversely, when respondents were given more nuanced options, support for withdrawal fell. In a 2024 survey , outright support for leaving was just 16% when respondents were offered alternatives such as “always abide by the ECHR even if that frustrates Parliament” or “remain committed to the ECHR but give Parliament the final word”. With such options, 66% supported some form of continued engagement with the ECHR.

Instead, respondents were asked to what extent they’d support a policy to “replace the current European system of human rights laws applied in Britain with new British laws that protect rights like free speech but enable the Government to promptly deport illegal migrants”. 30% of respondents answered “support strongly”, with a further 24% answering “tend to support”, for a combined 54% of respondents who expressed support for this policy.

Some 1,009 (48%) of respondents believed the UK should continue to be a member of the convention while 538 (26%) said the UK should withdraw, according to the poll seen by the PA news agency.

Specifically, whether people coming to the United Kingdom across the Channel on small boats should “all be immediately removed from the United Kingdom and prevented from ever returning” or whether they should “have their claims assessed and their right to stay in the UK decided on a case by case basis”. We uncovered a deeply divided British public; 38% of Britons align with the government position (immediate removal) while 43% align closer to Starmer’s suggestion (case by case basis).

While 63% of 2019 Conservative voters and an identical 63% of those who currently intend to vote Conservative support the government line, 22% and 23% respectively felt that Labour’s policy reflected their views better. Similarly, though 71% of 2019 Labour voters and 65% of those intending to vote for Starmer’s party feel closer to the “case by case basis” option, 14% and 21% respectively felt better represented by the government line.

However, a new YouGov poll testing attitudes to several immigration scenarios has found that almost half of Britons (45%) say they would support “admitting no more new migrants, and requiring large numbers of migrants who came to the UK in recent years to leave” – a figure which rises to 86% of Reform UK voters, but also encompasses sizeable minorities of Labour and Lib Dem voters (27% apiece).

If we recalculate those figures to show them as a proportion of the whole population, rather than just as a proportion of those who support deportations, we can see that the number of Britons who answered that they want deportations AND that this includes small boat asylum seekers stands at the equivalent of 38% of the general public.* Similarly high are the equivalent national figures for those coming to claim benefits (38%) and those coming without work visas to work in unskilled jobs (36%). By contrast, that equivalent national figure falls to 16% for asylum seekers following the correct legal process

In the June YouGov poll on this issue, 54% of Conservative voters and 72% of Reform voters were in favour of leaving the ECHR while 75% of Labour and Liberal Democrats voters were against leaving.

We examined more than a dozen opinion polls conducted by polling agencies, such as YouGov, since 2013. The first, that year, found 48% in favour of withdrawal and 35% in favour of remaining in the ECHR. A year later, the public was evenly split (41% leave, 38% stay), and by 2016 , following the Brexit referendum, 42% said Britain should stay in the ECHR while 35% wanted to leave. Since then, the balance has shifted steadily towards remain. By 2023 , half of respondents said the UK should remain a member, while only around a quarter favoured leaving the ECHR. A poll from June 2025 produced similar results: 51% in favour of staying, 27% for leaving and 22% unsure. The most recent YouGov data, published October 8 , found that 46% of the public are opposed to leaving the ECHR, and 29% say the UK should withdraw.