The rhetoric taps into genuine frustration yet the UK is safer and more tolerant than ever.
The evidence shows there is significant worry around both current levels of legal and illegal immigration. An Ipsos survey in February, external found 52% of people believed current immigration levels to be too high. Two years earlier, only 42% said that.
But the Ipsos survey showed people are generally more positive about the impact of immigration than not, although that gap has tightened since 2022 too.
As for longer term attitudes, the respected European Social Survey found that in 2022 most people in the UK thought immigration had been good for the economy and the country’s cultural life. A clear majority said it had made Britain a better place to live.
Separate research by the World Values Survey found the UK the least likely country to agree that immigration causes crime or unemployment. Just 5% of Brits said they’d be unhappy to have an immigrant for a neighbour, one of the lowest proportions found anywhere.
A good read for UK folk who need a bit of hope at the moment. Never forget, people like Elon Musk, Nigel Farage, and Tommy "£400-a-night-luxury-hotel" Robinson are manipulative, lying little snotrags talking out of their arses, and everything they say can and should be taken as garbage.
