Stay of execution
In his piece “From Hartlepool to the hangman” (July), Chris Mullin argues that the rise of English nationalism within the Conservative Party may eventually end in our bringing back the gallows. The analysis, though, does not sit easily with the direction of travel on this issue among the British public.
The evidence shows that there has been systematic liberalisation of attitudes towards the death penalty in Britain. The British Social Attitudes survey collates responses to the question: “For some crimes the death penalty is the most appropriate sentence.” Back in 1986, three-quarters of the British public agreed. There was a substantial decline in the mid-1990s, but a majority of the British public still agreed that the death penalty was the most appropriate sentence for some crimes until 2013. In 2014, though, the BSA recorded the first minority support—putting the figure at 49 per cent—and this has since fallen further, to 43 per cent in 2019.
Further liberalisation is likely: higher education is correlated with opposition to the death penalty, and so as generations with fewer graduates and direct memories of executions are replaced by younger cohorts, we would expect overall opinion to shift. Mullin argues that restoring the death penalty would in practice require a referendum, but the moment when such a referendum would have been winnable may have passed.
Paula Surridge is a political scientist at the University of Bristol