This is irrelevant given that we can’t do anything about it now.
” Elevated levels of immigration are very unpopular, and one of the main reasons for the unpopularity of the prime minister Rishi Sunak.”
I’m mildly skeptical of it being a “main reason” I feel. It is true that (roughly) 52% of people in the UK would like less immigration and only 14% want more, and perhaps therefore on the margin lower immigration would have helped Sunak, although the public usually don’t have a great sense of what the official stats on a topic are anyway*: https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/uk-public-opinion-toward-immigration-overall-attitudes-and-level-of-concern/. But there are some other extremely salient reasons for Sunak’s extreme unpopularity: high inflation until recently (which as Matt Yglesias keeps pointing out seems to be making all Western incumbents unpopular, whether on the right like Sunak, or the left like the current German government), a disastrous economic period under his predecessor where she literally instantly crashed the economy by changing policy and raised people’s mortgage payments, and which meant she had to resign almost instantly, lingering anger about the partying during covid scandal that did for Johnson, sky-high energy bills because of the war in Ukraine (not the government’s fault but people are often irrational about this sort of thing) and just the fact that the public are sick of the same party being in government for so long (just like in the US the president’s party usually does badly in the midterms.) Of these, I’d say the crash under Truss is likely THE most important driver, and Boris’ covid scandal the next most important. The Truss dip is extremely visible in the polls: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2024_United_Kingdom_general_election
In turn, I think the influence of decision-making about immigrants from one country, coming here to do something that everyone agrees is good, on Sunak’s popularity is incredibly small.
*The rest say about the same or the always respectable “don’t know”.
EDIT to add: And when the Tory vote first started declining under Johnson, Reform was pretty static, so that part of the decline was likely nothing to do with immigration. No one switches from Tory to Labour because they want less immigration(!). (Though plenty people with anti-immigration but economically left-leaning viewpoints are more likely to vote Labour if Labour promises less immigration.)
This is irrelevant given that we can’t do anything about it now.
” Elevated levels of immigration are very unpopular, and one of the main reasons for the unpopularity of the prime minister Rishi Sunak.”
I’m mildly skeptical of it being a “main reason” I feel. It is true that (roughly) 52% of people in the UK would like less immigration and only 14% want more, and perhaps therefore on the margin lower immigration would have helped Sunak, although the public usually don’t have a great sense of what the official stats on a topic are anyway*: https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/uk-public-opinion-toward-immigration-overall-attitudes-and-level-of-concern/. But there are some other extremely salient reasons for Sunak’s extreme unpopularity: high inflation until recently (which as Matt Yglesias keeps pointing out seems to be making all Western incumbents unpopular, whether on the right like Sunak, or the left like the current German government), a disastrous economic period under his predecessor where she literally instantly crashed the economy by changing policy and raised people’s mortgage payments, and which meant she had to resign almost instantly, lingering anger about the partying during covid scandal that did for Johnson, sky-high energy bills because of the war in Ukraine (not the government’s fault but people are often irrational about this sort of thing) and just the fact that the public are sick of the same party being in government for so long (just like in the US the president’s party usually does badly in the midterms.) Of these, I’d say the crash under Truss is likely THE most important driver, and Boris’ covid scandal the next most important. The Truss dip is extremely visible in the polls: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2024_United_Kingdom_general_election
In turn, I think the influence of decision-making about immigrants from one country, coming here to do something that everyone agrees is good, on Sunak’s popularity is incredibly small.
*The rest say about the same or the always respectable “don’t know”.
EDIT to add: And when the Tory vote first started declining under Johnson, Reform was pretty static, so that part of the decline was likely nothing to do with immigration. No one switches from Tory to Labour because they want less immigration(!). (Though plenty people with anti-immigration but economically left-leaning viewpoints are more likely to vote Labour if Labour promises less immigration.)