Patrick English: Public attitudes on immigration depend a lot on which immigrants you’re asking about

Dr Patrick English is Director of Political Analytics at YouGov, and their spokesman on political research.

British public opinion on immigration is complicated, ever evolving, and always nuanced. But there is are some pretty clear messages in the polling data that Brits believe immigration has been too high in recent years, are increasingly sceptical about its benefits to the country, and want to the government reduce the numbers of people coming into the United Kingdom.

The latest evidence in this is the latest YouGov polling on what sort of immigration regime the British public would like to see, what types of immigrants they feel positively and negatively towards, and what trade-offs they are willing to make with policy outcomes.

The highlight which has perhaps cut through the most in media and online discussions around our polling is the finding that 45 per cent of Brits would support a new immigration regime where no new migrants would be allowed into the country, and a significant number of those already here would be deported.

This is quite an extreme position by British political standards, and not one which any main party is proposing. While mass deportations do have support from politicians such as Rupert Lowe, Farage and everyone to the left of he and Reform have dismissed such an idea.

It must be said that 44 per cent oppose such a system and would be against any such ‘shut down the borders and deport’ policy. Further, it was not even the most popular of the potential positions proposed: a significantly larger number (56 per cent) of the public prefer a system whereby immigration is substantially reduced, but people are still allowed to come in and no one is removed (32 per cent opposed that).

What does all this mean for the Conservatives and their place in the British party political contest?

The Conservative party should, theoretically, be in a strong place to categorise on public frustration and demands to move toward a more restrictive system. Immigration as an issue which has risen to the very top of the political agenda according to our ‘most important issues facing the country today’ tracking data, and the political right typically always has an advantage on immigration over the left.

But the Conservatives face a severe credibility challenge. While our latest data suggests that the public believe the Labour government are handling immigration badly by an overwhelming majority of 76 per cent, with just 14 per cent saying they are handling it well, those figures are still better than they were under the previous Conservative government, who under Rishi Sunak ended at 86 per cent “badly” and just seven per cent “well”.

The Tories have, for now, generally been replaced as the main party of the British political right in the eyes of voters by Reform UK, and it is they who have the credibility edge when it comes to who would “be the best at handling asylum and immigration”, according to our data. Last month, 36 per cent of Brits told us they thought Reform UK would be best to handle this, compared to just six per cent for the Conservatives and 11 per cent for Labour.

Once again, Kemi Badenoch and her party find themselves battling against not only to be heard and trusted above the government, but to be heard and trusted above another opposition party, on an issue on which the Conservatives ought to be strong and well-placed

There are also potential traps and pitfalls however for any party – including Reform UK or the Conservatives, or even the Labour government – looking at taking a blanket or sweeping approach to immigration reforms, including border shutdowns, limitations on arrivals, or even deportations.

The clearest of which is the realisation as we move through the latest YouGov data that when the public are talking about immigrants, either in the context of deportations or limiting new arrivals, they are generally thinking and talking about specific types of immigrants and immigration.

For example, among those respondents who said they would support admitting no more new migrants and requiring large numbers of deportations, 91 per cent said they supported requiring large numbers of “people who came to the UK to claim benefits” to leave, 90 per cent said the same of “people who crossed the English Channel in small boats to seek asylum in the UK”, and 85 per cent said “Workers who came to the UK without a valid work visa to work in unskilled jobs”.

Only around 20 to 25 per cent of those who want mass deportations supported the removal of doctors, nurses, British citizens, skilled trades people (e.g. plumbers or electricians), or workers in industries suffering skills shortages.

The same data shows that while 79 per cent of Brits believe illegal immigration has been too high, only 48 per cent think the same of legal immigration. Brits are also more likely to think that legal immigration has been ‘mostly good’ for the country (36 per cent) than ‘mostly bad’ (22 per cent).

The nuances don’t stop there; when asked about potential trade-offs, clear majorities of Brits actually preferred many outcomes where legal immigration was rising so long as it achieved things such as “the NHS is fully staffed” (67 per cent), “getting enough workers in areas with skills shortages” (60 per cent), and “attracting the best and brightest to the UK” (59 per cent).

So, despite some eye-catching initial headline figures, and I must say some rather selective reporting of our polling, careful reading of the data does not suggest that the British public want sweeping bans on immigration nor deportations of legal immigrants.

In fact, it is not at all clear from this evidence that Brits have too much of a problem with legal immigration. It appears more so that illegal immigration, small boat crossings, and the asylum system have come to dominate the ‘top of mind’ responses in a lot of those headline immigration figures.

And that nuance and those distinctions are of important political consequence to any political party drawing up policy plans for British immigration.