Majority of Britons Say Immigration Too High, Just Four Per Cent Say Immigration Too Low

A clear majority of Britons think immigration is too high, while a mere four per cent believe it is too low, according to new polling.

With net immigration now standing at a record-shattering 504,000 — not including “recent irregular migration”, which adds at least tens of thousands to this already sky-high figure — GB News commissioned PeoplePolling to conduct a representative survey of 1,208 people for an insight into the public’s view of the situation.

The pollsters’ found 54 per cent of Britons believe the current influx is “too high” — a much more decisive finding than the number alone would suggest, as just 13 per cent said they believed immigration is “about right” and a mere four per cent said it was “too low”.

The findings are broadly in line with YouGov tracking of British public sentiment on immigration, with 59 per cent of people describing immigration as “too high” as of November 7th compared to 16 per cent for “about right” and nine per cent for “too low”.

It is not just the latest record-breaking figures which the public find unacceptable, either, with the YouGov tracker, beginning in July 2019, finding just two months where “too high” was under 50 per cent — February and March of this year, when it stood at 49 per cent and 46 per cent, respectively.

Even these were decisive pluralities, with “too low” peaking at a mere 16 per cent in March and “about right” having topped out at 28 per cent back at the beginning of 2020 and then trending downwards.

Public perception of the government’s handling of immigration, meanwhile, has never been worse, with 86 per cent of people rating them as doing “badly” on November 7th compared to just 6 per cent who think they are doing “well”.

Indeed, the best result the government has managed since tracking began in June 2019 is 53 per “badly” to 29 per cent “well” in March 2020.

“These numbers underline the very high levels of public concern over the historically unprecedented level of immigration into the country. Crucially, for Rishi Sunak, the vast majority of his voters appear utterly convinced that the numbers are too high, pointing to another problem in a long line of problems for the incumbent prime minister,” said analyst Matthew Goodwin of the new findings in comments to GB News.

“With rumours of an imminent return for Nigel Farage and the Reform party turning up on the volume on immigration, our numbers suggest that around one-third of Britain would be open to a new party that specifically campaigns to lower the overall level of immigration into Britain, rising to nearly 60 per cent of the country’s Leavers,” he added.

“There is, in short, more potential space for a Reform-type party than their current 5 per cent in the polls implies,” he added, referring to Reform UK, the rebranded Brexit Party currently led by Richard Tice.

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