Protocol 15 inserts a new recital into the Preamble of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) which affirms the primacy of national authorities in securing the effective realisation of Convention rights. As such it states a particular ordering of political and legal power between a central authority in the system of rights protection (the Court) and its member units (State legislatures and courts).The Protocol ‘s origins are to be found in the Brighton Declaration (2012) The following discussion takes as its frame of reference Article 10 jurisprudence of the Court as it touches upon political expression. The first section of materials sets the overall context for Protocol 15 by reference to the Brighton Declaration and the background concerns of certain Council of Europe States as well as the draft Copenhagen Declaration (2018). Then attention is devoted to the questions of democratic principle that are engaged by Protocol 15. Does greater deference to national decision-making threaten open channels of political participation? The final part of the discussion looks to the ‘post Brighton/Protocol 15 pre-entry’ period. The new argument that is made here suggests that a selective retreat away from substantive supranational review towards systemic supranational review in political expression cases may be occurring. Newer and transitional democracies remain subject to fairly strict levels of supranational scrutiny whilst their more established counterparts possessing well-established mechanisms of internal independent rights review look to be the main beneficiaries. Whilst such an emerging pattern may make intuitive sense, the discussion below questions whether it is in fact entirely problem free.