New research by Ipsos for British Future, which has tracked public opinion on immigration issues since 2015, found that the public feels broadly positive about immigration. More people feel that immigration has had a positive effect on Britain (46 per cent) than a negative effect (29 per cent). That’s a complete reversal of the findings when the survey was first conducted in February 2015.
Support for reducing immigration is at its lowest level since the tracker survey began. While four in ten people want immigration to be reduced, more would prefer it to stay at current levels or to increase. More people would welcome increased migration to fill skills and labour gaps in particular areas, such as the NHS, social care and agriculture, than would like to reduce it.
While the British public has changed its mind significantly on immigration over the last seven years, they are largely unaware that this has happened. Around half of the people are moderate “balancers” on the issue but believe — wrongly, as this study shows — that other people’s attitudes are getting tougher and this may not have been widely noticed.
It may be because different people have changed their minds for different reasons. For some who had been more sceptical about immigration, the EU referendum offered the catharsis of being able to talk about the issue, for others the reassurance that immigration, particularly from the EU, would be subject to UK government control.
At the same time, some people who were already positive about immigration became more supportive still, as an expression of post-referendum regret. Many have said that greater awareness of the contribution made by migrants to Britain’s economy and public services — brought into sharper focus in media stories after Brexit and during the pandemic — made them feel more positive about immigration.
Much of the polarisation playing out in the political sphere looks at those arriving in small boats, not those moving for work and study. Yet the recently resigned Home Minister, Suella Braverman had put the prospects of cutting the economic and student migration agenda, including by casting doubt on the India-UK free trade agreement.
As the director of communication at British Future, Steve Ballinger says, there is ongoing concern over Channel crossings. But the government’s response, deportations to Rwanda, is deeply divisive: around four in ten are supportive and a third opposed. A majority of people agree, however, that it is unlikely to have the intended effect of reducing the number of people crossing the channel to seek asylum.
Understanding where public attitudes are is a useful corrective to negative caricatures of the British public in the political debate. People are more divided than they would like, but they have more common ground than they are led to believe. Most people are not for total stoppage of immigration nor for open borders. Most are “balancers” on immigration and would support policies that reflect this moderate approach.
Liz Truss, who resigned as Prime Minister last week, her former chancellor and the health minister had all spoken of the need for more openness on immigration. That would seem to put them at odds with Braverman, who had suggested that she would like to bring back the ‘tens of thousands’ net migration target.
One of the first acts of Boris Johnson, after becoming prime minister, was to ditch the target because he realised control was more important than numbers – that once voters knew the government could choose the immigration it wanted to keep, they would give permission for some increases in migration where the economy and society needed it. The Home Minister and other voices can pursue an anti-immigration line if they wish, but they cannot claim to do so as current public opinion. (The writer is our foreign correspondent based in the UK)
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