Drastic cut in immigration the favourite option for UK voters

Exclusive poll shows Labour heading for election victory as Tory migration pitch falls flat

Britain's ruling Conservatives have made illegal English Channel migration a key election issue but failed to reverse their poor standing in the polls. AFP

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Most people in Britain want to cut immigration, according to new polling for The National which suggests Labour leader Keir Starmer will romp into Downing Street.

An exclusive Deltapoll survey shows 57 per cent want the number of immigrants “coming to the UK these days” to fall, with 13 per cent saying it should rise.

The majority includes 40 per cent who say the number should be “decreased a lot” and 17 per cent who want it “decreased a little”.

However, a Conservative push to make migration a key election issue has failed to revive the party's dire electoral prospects.

Our poll shows Labour heading for a landslide victory on July 4, with the Conservatives on the brink of a historic rout.

Labour gets 42 per cent support, with the Conservatives on 20 per cent. Such a margin would be unparalleled in postwar British history.

The ardently anti-immigration Reform Party – whose supporters are most likely to want a tougher border policy – sits on 17 per cent.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has dismal personal ratings, with 70 per cent saying he is doing his job badly and 26 per cent well.

Labour leader Keir Starmer performs better, with 47 per cent scoring him well and 44 per cent badly.

Migration debate

Mr Sunak used the final head-to-head TV debate of the election campaign to go on the attack over migration.

Scorning Labour’s plans to negotiate the return of illegal migrants, he asked whether Mr Starmer would “sit down with the ayatollahs” or “do a deal with the Taliban”.

Mr Starmer hit back on Thursday by saying Mr Sunak had “no answer” to the backlog of asylum seekers already being housed in Britain.

He said it would take “literally hundreds of years” to clear the backlog by deporting people to Rwanda under Mr Sunak’s signature pledge.

Reform party leader Nigel Farage meanwhile defended his use of the term “invasion” to describe illegal migration across the English Channel.

More than 50,000 migrants have arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel since Mr Sunak took power.

Legal migration is also a key issue, having added a net 745,000 people to the UK’s population in record annual figures published last year.

Mr Farage said mass migration had created a sense that “perhaps something about our culture is directly under threat”.

In the polling results, only 21 per cent are satisfied with the current level of immigration.

Among Conservatives, 72 per cent want to cut immigration and 54 per cent want it decreased a lot.

The figures rise among Reform supporters to 79 per cent wanting less immigration and 54 per cent much less.

While 48 per cent of Labour voters want immigration decreased, only 27 per cent want it down a lot.

Labour says it will form a new border security command as one of its first steps in office, using counterterror powers to tackle people smuggling.

The Conservatives say deportation flights to Rwanda would begin this summer if they win a fifth term.

Economic woes

The poll also finds there is dissatisfaction with Conservative economic policies after 14 years in office.

Only 31 per cent say the British economy is best off being run by Mr Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt.

Labour is better placed, with 47 per cent saying a Starmer government with Rachel Reeves as chancellor would be better for the economy.

The Deltapoll survey for The National also shows:

· A majority (54 per cent) support banning arms sales to Israel, while about 32 per cent say the war in Gaza will be important to their vote

· If there were a second referendum on EU membership, 46 per cent say they would vote to rejoin and 37 per cent to stay out

· The idea of making 18-year-olds do a year of military service is supported by 38 per cent and opposed by 50 per cent

· If Britain could vote in the US presidential election, 46 per cent would support Joe Biden and 24 per cent would side with Donald Trump.

The voting intention figures put Labour on course for a vast national swing only five years after it crashed to its worst defeat since 1935.

Under Britain’s first-past-the-post voting system, such a swing would typically produce a Labour majority of about 250 seats.

Deltapoll’s co-founder and director Joe Twyman said “all the indications” are that Labour will win the election and “by some distance”.

“The problems facing Keir Starmer, should he indeed become the UK’s next prime minister, remain substantial, however.

“While domestic issues around the cost of living, the NHS and immigration will feature prominently, big foreign policy questions will need to be addressed.”

Deltapoll interviewed 2,077 British adults online between June 24 and 26. The data has been weighted to be representative of the British adult population as a whole.