By six points, the floor backed abolition, but read the opinions and the vote looks less like a verdict on a quango than a proxy skirmish over the ECHR and immigration enforcement. Of 161 voters, 85 said yes, yet the most-respected argument on either side barely mentioned the Commission's actual work, framing the question instead as one of national sovereignty: "a sovereign nation has the right to decide who, what and how it regulates and governs its own people and those residing within its borders."
The Yes case, such as it was, ran on outrage at constraint rather than detail about the EHRC's function — deportation frustrated by "crazy ECHR laws," the Commission cast as a needless extra layer since "enforcement of law is the responsibility of the police." One voter simply called the body "outdated and of another age," another wanted it replaced by "our own framework... not beholden to outdated European idealism."
The No side, though it lost, made the more specific case, distinguishing the EHRC from the Convention it enforces and defending its actual record: it is "a brake on anti democratic activists," useful precisely on "free speech and women's single sex rights." One reply even reached for the numbers — since 1980 the ECHR "heard 29 cases involving the UK government regarding illegal immigration, finding in favor of the UK government 16 times" — a granular rebuttal to a debate otherwise conducted in slogans, and the two sides largely talked past each other, Yes fighting the Convention, No defending the Commission.
The result sits squarely on the fault line running through Reform UK's culture-war politics and the 2025 Supreme Court ruling on single-sex spaces, where institutional trust in equality bodies has become entangled with older arguments about ECHR membership and border control.
A chamber narrowly for abolishing the referee argued, almost to a voter, about the rules of a different game.
15 Opinions
We need to abolish it an establish our own framework. That way we are not beholden to outdated European idealism regarding issues such as immigration. But I would want it replaced by a domestic bill of rights covering much of the same rights e.g. freedom of expression.
Close called either way - defending EHRC doesn't change the laws it's supposed to protect, it's not a legislative body, but it's reach is greater than that intended. There will always be an angry man in a Kimono to fight the government. But, run properly, it should be as useful as trade unions used to be
All the race relations and equality bollocks gas been a disaster for Britain. Let’s put British people unapologetically first and everyone else last.
Outdated and of another age. Not fit for today's problems .
As the Diplomat says. A huge success of such campaigns is getting people to want to vote away their own rights and protections. Free Speech, a fair trial, peacefully protest etc. People are being conned by the use of a few edge cases to throw out the baby with the bathwater. The need here is to refine and develop the current framework to allow for appropriate deportation. This isn't something foisted on us, we helped write it! Another use of the word 'Euopean' as a boogeyman
We should leave the European Convention on Human Rights ( ECHR) but until then the Equality and Human Rights Commission (confusingly, EHRC) is preventing people who are trying to read wider powers into the Convention beyond what we signed up for. The EHRC is a brake on anti democratic activists.
Obviously we shouldn't. Despite what those who claim otherwise, British citizens have been protected by the ECHR rather than punished. The truth is the reason THEY want to take us out is because the ECHR stops THEM doing things that will hurt US (British citizens). That's why THEY want us to leave! If you doubt this, actually check what the ECHR protects YOU personally from (you'll be suprised). Then ask yourself why would anyone want you to give those protections up?
There are two separate points here. Should there be enforcement of human rights, and who should be doing that enforcement? The former is undoubtedly worthy of discussion, in view of some outrageous cases of abuse. But the latter point is easier to address: enforcement of law is the responsibility of the police. There is no need for a commission to get in the way and generally interfere in what should be a clear cut legal process to apply and (as necessary) update law.
Being held to random by crazy ECHR laws when it comes to not being able to deport the very worse criminals who may have come To our lands by illegal means is societal suicide. Our country needs to regulate and enforce with total discernment. A sovereign nation has the right to decide who, what and how it regulates and governs its own people and those residing within its borders.