TAKE BACK CONTROL?
Know which rights could go with it.
Reform presents the ECHR, Human Rights Act and data regulation mainly as obstacles to government action and business. There are real arguments about bureaucracy and the use of rights law in immigration cases. But these protections are not reserved for migrants, criminals or large companies. They are also tools ordinary people use when hospitals, councils, police, employers, political parties and government get things wrong.
Reform presents the ECHR, Human Rights Act and data regulation mainly as obstacles to government action and business. There are real arguments about bureaucracy and the use of rights law in immigration cases. But these protections are not reserved for migrants, criminals or large companies. They are also tools ordinary people use when hospitals, councils, police, employers, political parties and government get things wrong.
The key issue
- Reform says it would leave the European Convention on Human Rights and repeal the Human Rights Act.
- Its 2026 business proposals also include replacing UK GDPR with a lighter data-protection regime.
- Human-rights protections apply to everybody dealing with public authorities, not just immigration cases.
- UK GDPR currently gives people rights including access to personal information held about them.
What they said
The argument Reform makes
Reform says foreign courts, treaties and regulation constrain elected government, make deportation harder and create unnecessary costs. There is a legitimate debate about how rights are interpreted, how long cases take and whether small businesses face too much compliance paperwork. Criticising bureaucracy is not the same thing as proving the underlying rights are unnecessary.
The Human Rights Act is used at home
The Human Rights Act lets people rely on Convention rights in UK courts when public authorities act unlawfully. Those rights include life, liberty, fair trial, privacy and family life, expression, religion and protection from discrimination in the enjoyment of Convention rights. Leaving the ECHR and repealing the Act changes the framework available to everybody, not only people facing removal from Britain.
Data rights are personal rights
UK GDPR gives people a right to ask an organisation whether it holds their personal data, obtain a copy and understand how it is being used. It also provides rights around correction, objection and some automated decisions. Compliance can be simplified, but scrapping a regulatory framework should be judged by what individual rights survive in the replacement, not by the slogan "cut red tape".
The irony of challenging power
Political parties themselves use courts, judicial review and data law. Reform has used judicial review to challenge government decisions. Voters and campaigners have also used data-access law when seeking information from political organisations. That is what legal safeguards are for: giving the smaller party a process to challenge the more powerful one.
Jenrick 1.0 and safeguards
When Robert Jenrick was Conservative Immigration Minister in 2023, his department described safeguards against wrongful bank-account closure for people wrongly identified as unlawful migrants. That is worth remembering. Tough enforcement and safeguards are not opposites. Government can act firmly while preserving a route to correct mistakes.
Our assessment
There is room to simplify GDPR compliance, reform court procedure and write clearer immigration law. But the test should be simple: can the government achieve the legitimate objective without taking useful protections away from everybody else? Reform should publish a rights-by-rights replacement plan explaining exactly what happens to privacy, data access, family life, fair-hearing protections and remedies against unlawful public decisions.
Sources
We separate Reform’s own policy and statements from outside reporting and our analysis. Sources checked when this article was prepared.
- Reform UK policies: ECHR, Human Rights Act and sovereignty
- Financial Times: Reform pledges to scrap GDPR for lighter regime, 25 Aug 2026
- ICO: A guide to subject access
- Home Office: safeguards described by Robert Jenrick, 6 Apr 2023
- Reform UK accessibility statement
- Reform UK political campaigning privacy notice
