A large majority of UK voters believe immigration is increasing despite sharp falls in the number of people entering the UK, according to exclusive polling shared with the Guardian.
Voters also say they have no confidence in the government’s ability to control the UK’s borders, according to the poll by More in Common. The results will come as a blow to Keir Starmer’s administration, which has taken an increasingly hardline stance on immigration in recent months.
Net migration to the UK fell by more than two-thirds to a post-pandemic low in the year ending June 2025, but 67% of the people polled thought it had increased. Among Reform voters, four in five thought immigration had grown, and more than three in five (63%) believed it had “increased significantly”.
The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, promised “the most substantial reform to the UK’s asylum system in a generation” in November, and proposed a series of hardline policies to make the UK less attractive to migrants and refugees.
They don’t make their decisions based on that directly, the money pays for propaganda. Given the ultra rich are now pretty clearly the root of most modern day problems we’re facing, it’s in their interest to spend any amount they can to ensure people lay the blame on people less fortunate, rather than sharpening the guillotine blade.
A lot of people bought into Thatcher and Reagan’s neoliberal bootstraps bullshit, hook, line and sinker. Those people all believe success means you must have worked hard and been smart. The reality that everyone in the class of “successful” to them, is successful due to intentional or unintentional nepotism.
This is why they look to people like Musk and Trump as authority, they truly believe they actually did something virtuous to end up where they are and therefore have anything of value to say. This is rather than the reality where they simply won the birth lottery and decided to also be spiteful, unlikable assholes filled with contempt.