In the latest GB News People’s polling we explore the core issues affecting voters sentiment as we head into day 22 of the election campaign.
Nigel Farage continues to surge towards the Tories with polls showing they are just 2 per cent behind the Sunak and there’s one issue in particular that sums up GB viewers feelings more than any other.
The ECHR is an issue which has been an underlying theme of the Tory campaign as they bid to swing further to the right.
And now the GB News People’s Poll reveals only four per cent of GB News viewers think that the jurisdiction of foreign courts like the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) should be prioritised above UK security.
In comparison, 42 per cent of respondents think the security of the UK should be the first priority.
Another 24 per cent of voters said they believe there should be an equal balance of UK security and foreign courts.
It comes as the Conservative Party’s manifesto stated that if they were to win, they would choose the UK’s border security over the “jurisdiction of a foreign court, including the European Court of Human Rights.”
Rishi Sunak failed to say if he would pull out of the European Convention of Human Rights
PA
The survey by People Polling found a further 30 per cent of people didn’t know if UK security or foreign courts should be prioritised.
Sunak failed to say whether he would be prepared to pull out of the ECHR if it failed to reform when questioned over the issue at the manifesto launch.
Instead, the Prime Minister repeated the party’s manifesto adding: “I’ve been clear throughout that I believe that our plan is compliant with all our international obligations.”
Members of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) open a hearing
Getty
Other Conservatives have called for the UK to pull out of the treaty after it stopped flights carrying asylum seekers leaving for Rwanda.
Penny Mordaunt has said that Britain must be prepared to leave the convention if it is not reformed.
She said “as someone who campaigned to leave the EU if you want to reform the practices of such institutions you have to be prepared to leave them. I would, as my record shows.”
Her position on the issue seems to have changed as during the 2022 Tory leadership race when asked whether she would take the UK out of the ECHR she said she wouldn’t.
Penny Mordaunt said Britain must be prepared to leave the ECHR if it did not reformPA
Other right-wing Tories like Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick have also called for the UK to leave the ECHR.
Jack Brereton, former Conservative MP, told GB News that there is “no other choice” but to leave the ECHR.
Brereton said: “It would be difficult to disagree with many of the aims ECHR stand for, but so critical are the challenges faced, we are left with no other choice, and the UK should be prepared to leave ECHR.
“Since the UK left the EU in January 2020, we have been taking advantage of our Brexit freedoms, whether this be forming new trade deals or taking back control of our own laws to ensure they serve the British people.”
Created in the 1940s, the ECHR is an international rights treaty between the 47 states that are members of the Council of Europe.
It is separate from the European Union, so the UK remained a part of it when it left the EU.
Governments signed up to the ECHR have a legal commitment to adhere to standards of behaviour to protect human rights and freedoms of people.
Reform UK has also claimed that it would support leaving the ECHR.
Source Agencies
