The chamber chose to replace the treaties with a domestic bill, and Yes won decisively, taking 301 votes to No’s 196. Yet the floor’s most-respected argument came from the losing side: “our basic rights become a political football”, a striking mismatch between the vote and the room’s ranking of its best case.
Yes voters argued for control, not necessarily for the disappearance of rights. Their strongest voice called it “absolute nonsense to believe our human rights would be non existent if we left the ECHR”, while another said the country was “perfectly capable of governing ourselves”; the underlying complaint was that judges now wield too much influence over treaties not designed for the present day.
No’s case was more defensive and institutional. It warned that Britain’s role in creating the Convention made withdrawal unnecessary, and one of its clearest concessions was: “I think we should have a written bill of rights but I don't think we should withdraw from the others.” The two sides were often answering different questions — Yes asking who should make the rules, No asking what protection remains when a future government wants to weaken them.
That tension places the result inside the UK’s argument over sovereignty and the reach of international law, with consequences beyond Westminster: leaving would end the Strasbourg route and reopen the Convention’s place in Northern Ireland’s constitutional settlement. Even among Yes voters, there was unease that “a big chunk of the drive to remove the ECHR” was aimed at removing rights from other people, leaving the winning coalition broader than its most strident voices.
The verdict was for a British-made rights settlement, but the debate’s best argument was a warning about what might happen after the drafting ends.
23 Opinions
I'm of the opinion that a written Bill of Rights could, in practice, go much further than the ECHR and operate in an almost codified manner like the US Constitution. However, I do have a big concern with voting Yes to such measures as it's clear that a big chunk of the drive to remove the ECHR are people who wish to remove human rights from other people, (be it criminals, immigrants etc) which goes against the very purpose of human rights in the first place.
NO We should be deeply suspicious of anyone wanting to remove the 18 original articles designed to protect us (the common people of Europe). Even Winston Churchill, beloved of the political right, was a champion of the ideas of & organisations that eventually became the ECHR. I'd also challenge anyone to show me where anyone of those original articles has done anything other than protect them from those who want to take their freedoms away.
The Human Rights Act is a joke - it’s about 1000 words long, and designed to be ambiguous and malleable in order to allow politicians and lawyers the opportunity to take advantage of it at will.
The current system means that the government is in hock to the judiciaries interpretation of treaties that were never designed for today's world.
It’s absolute nonsense to believe our human rights would be non existent if we left the ECHR. As a country, we were always at the forefront of such, and we are perfectly capable of governing ourselves.
Im sure we can come up with our own fair and robust rights
The issue with the ECHR is over-enthusiastic application by lawyers and judges. Other countries just ignore it when it contradicts their nationalbinterest. We should be more like them.
The ECHR is no longer fit for purpose of the world we live in today.
If we tear up international treaties for an untested domestic bill, our basic rights become a political football that any government can water down when convenient. British lawyers literally helped draft the ECHR after WWII based on our own values... So it's just unnecessary and more bureaucracy.
I think we should have a written bill of rights but I don't think we should withdraw from the others. There should always be a fallback