In recent months, there has been a resurgence of interest in the death penalty among rightwing politicians in the UK. The leader of Restore Britain, Rupert Lowe, has made a manifesto commitment to holding a legally binding referendum on bringing back capital punishment. The Reform MP Lee Anderson is also in favour of a referendum, arguing that the public would vote in favour of the death penalty.
Such supporters of capital punishment in Britain point to polls such as this “bombshell survey” that supposedly showed 47% of students favoured bringing back the death penalty. But these headlines are misleading, as surveys rarely include details about the grim administration of capital punishment and only present a binary choice of the options.
