To some lawmakers in Britain’s ruling Conservative party, the European Court of Human Rights represents the kind of meddling, supranational institution they thought they’d seen the back of when the UK left the European Union in 2020. At the party’s annual conference in October, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was under pressure to announce a break with the court to give his government a freer hand to deal with unwanted migrants.

The convention was established shortly after the end of the World War II to promote human rights, individual freedom, democracy, free elections, respect for property rights and access to education. One of its driving forces was Winston Churchill, the wartime statesman revered today by Brexit supporters as a symbol of British independence and self-reliance. The UK was the first nation to ratify the convention drafted in 1950 and enacted in 1953. It forms part of a broader set of commitments agreed by signatories to the 46-member Council of Europe, of which the UK remains a member despite its departure from the EU. In its seven-decade history, only two nations have abandoned the ECHR: Greece during a period of military rule, and Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

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