LONDON — The U.K.’s political right wants to quit another European institution. Battle-scarred Remainers are leaving nothing to chance this time.

With ministers struggling to stop undocumented migrants arriving on British shores, the poll-topping “Mr. Brexit” Nigel Farage has been pushing hard for another nuclear option: leaving the European Convention on Human Rights altogether. 

The Conservative Party is jumping on the bandwagon too — and that’s putting Britain’s Labour government, haunted by the failed 2016 campaign to keep Britain in the EU, in fight-back mode. 

Opponents argue ECHR departure is the only way to control asylum claims, which successive governments have struggled to reduce. The convention became part of U.K. domestic law in 1998, and allows people to appeal against government immigration decisions on human rights grounds. It means asylum-seekers can invoke Articles 8 — protecting a right to family life — and Article 3 — the prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment.

Supporters insist quitting the convention won’t actually solve the highly visible problem of small boats landing on British shores. They warn that walking away from the ECHR would weaken human rights protections for British citizens — and damage the country’s standing on the world stage.  

“We need to get on the front foot and ensure there is a concerted campaign to make the case for the benefit of our membership of the ECHR to ordinary voters,” said a U.K. government official involved in discussions and granted anonymity to speak frankly about them.

“We don’t want to wake up in three years’ time trying to play catch-up after years of campaigning by Conservatives and Reform.”

Remain and reform?

While the shape of the nascent campaign is yet to settle, officials are already starting to think about how they can rapidly rebut noisy arguments made by the convention’s detractors.

Brits are unlikely to get a referendum vote on Britain’s membership as they did over membership of the European Union in 2016.

But both Reform UK and the Conservatives are pledging to stand at the next election, due in 2029, on an ECHR departure ticket. 

Officials in government are acutely conscious of parallels with Brexit, where a Remain campaign faced an uphill battle against Farage after generations of politicians had briefed against the EU.

Like David Cameron in the 2016 Brexit referendum, ministers in the ruling Labour Party are not planning to fight their battle to remain in the ECHR on the status quo.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will on Monday unveil plans for a new U.K. law reforming the way Article 8 — the right to family life — is interpreted, to “constrain” the way it is applied in immigration cases.

Mahmood is also hoping to build alliances with members of the Council of Europe to address what she sees as the “over-expansive application” of Article 3, which prohibits torture.

Supporters argue this needs to be done quickly so that ministers can start making a positive case for the convention. 

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in October that the government needs “to look again at the interpretation” by U.K. courts of the convention and other international treaties in immigration cases. But Starmer, a barrister by profession, has long insisted he does not want to “tear down” human rights laws, and stressed that it remains the government’s policy to stay in the ECHR.

Outrider campaigns

While ministers mull reform, an outrider campaign has already begun, with other British progressives vowing to take on Farage and the Conservatives — and mount a noisy defense of the convention.

“The Liberal Democrats have already been making it very clear that we’re campaigning to remain in the ECHR,” Max Wilkinson, the party’s home affairs spokesman said.

“We think that this is a total red herring from the perspective of solving issues to do with immigration and asylum, because leaving the ECHR is going to make very little difference to our ability to deal with small boat arrivals,” he argued. 

“If we thought that the chaos caused by leaving the European Union, and those years of painful debates about how Brexit was going to be done, were really difficult for the country, then leaving the ECHR is going to be another compounded impact on top of that.”

“We’re already making the case,” Green Party Deputy Leader Mothin Ali said. “We’re already campaigning to make sure that the positives are talked about.”

Earlier this month the human rights group Liberty coordinated a statement from almost 300 organizations — from homeless charities to veterans groups — calling for a “full-throated” defense of the ECHR and the Human Rights Act, and warning that the way the convention had been used as a political scapegoat over recent years had had “devastating real world consequences.”

One of those signatories, Naomi Smith, chief executive of the Best for Britain campaign group, said the group plans to reconvene after Mahmood’s speech. Best for Britain was set up after Brexit and unsuccessfully campaigned for a second referendum. “We’re certainly not twiddling our thumbs,” Smith said, but she stressed the group is also “giving the government the space to land in the right place” on the issue.

Reverse Midas touch 

Allies of Starmer see Labour’s former human rights lawyer leader as one of their most authoritative voices when it comes to making the case for the ECHR.

But other progressives fear a man whose party is streets behind Farage in the polls and beset by factionalism could be an encumbrance.

“If I’m totally honest, I think [Starmer] is a liability for any cause right now because of how poorly he’s performing, and how unpopular he is,” the Green’s Ali, whose party wants to challenge Labour from the left, said. 

He’s pushing the Greens’ charismatic new leader Zack Polanski as a strong advocate, pointing out the success of the Brexit campaign’s willingness to get populist under both Farage and Boris Johnson. 

“They were both very charismatic figures and both were very populist-style campaigns that were easily digestible,” Ali said. 

“I think you always need a plurality of voices in any winning campaign,” Smith of Best for Britain said.