Sunak holds a referendum on European Convention

[kitesurfer]

Imagine that on 4 July, the country had both a General Election and referendum on the European Convention on Human Rights. Sunak decides to be impartial in the referendum.

On balance, I think it would have been hard to get a referendum through the House of Commons, as the One Nation Tories would have stopped it, but lets imagine they vote for it, as they think the country will vote to remain. Maybe they think the referendum helps them keep their seats?


How does this change the result of the election? Would it have made Reform disband? Do the Tories keep the Red Wall? Do the Tories do worse with even more switchers to Labour and even more Lib Dem gains? Does Labour promise to respect the result?

[The Bishop]

The fact that a Tory party on course for a massive defeat - and both absolutely desperate and demonstratably capable of being totally unscrupulous - *still* didn't seriously consider doing this, should probably tell you something about how practical a proposition it was.

[johnloony]

When I met Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss in 2022 I asked both of them whether they would commit to staying in the ECHR. They both gave middling answers, not definitely committing to it or to withdrawing from it. (For that reason I didn’t vote for either of them). I think that Rishi Sunak never wanted to withdraw from the ECHR but pretended to keep his options open just to keep the right of the party on board.

I was slightly surprised (but delighted) that the Conservative manifesto didn’t say anything about withdrawing from the ECHR (or even of having a referendum on the issue). The answer to the question is that there wouldn’t have been a referendum. If there were, it would have been heavily for staying in.