Seven in ten say Keir Starmer is handling migration badly

13 comments

1. I would like some of whatever the 3/10 are smoking because it must be potent

2. Starmer is making the same mistake that Sunak made in the last election – trying to outdo Farage on being tough on migration.

   Not only is it not going to work, but by making this almost his main flagship policy and core objective of his government, it means the next election will be contested entirely about migration and which party can tackle it best.

   And of course, Farage will on that every single time.

   If Starmer wants to win votes, then he needs to start being honest with people about what actually causes refugee crises in the world and what we must do as a country to prevent them from growing worse.

   Then, if he truly wants to bring down immigration numbers, then he needs to consider travel bans on certain nationalities, like Israelis and Indians, the former for waging genocide, and the latter for financially supporting Russia.

   If Starmer is going to truly be bold on migration and seek to outdo Farage on being tough on migration, then he has to commit to it and own it.

   Otherwise, stop focusing on it and raise awareness of other and equally important issues.

3. His rhetoric alienates progressive types who’re more pro-immigration (who, despite what some people here try to argue, aren’t some fringe irrelevance). The hardliners’ Hitler particles are reaching saturation levels, and they won’t be happy with anything less than genocide. As for the average low-information voter, what matters is less hard data and actual reality, more the impression provided by the MSM (concern for immigration tracks better to the number of Daily Mail headlines about immigration than the actual immigration rate).

   Starmer’s strategy meaningfully appeals to very few people, and pisses off far more, so this polling is unsurprising.

4. He wants to counter farage but doesn’t want to alienate his supporters and fucked it up.

   Our systems are reaching breaking points because our population is too much and it’s from failing to keep it updated.

5. His changes to skilled worker visa from 22nd of July are good.

   His focusing on “smashing the gangs” is total cluelessness. Fails to address any of the actual problems or draws of irregular migration.

   The recent idea to overhaul appeals is an interesting idea, but again, fails to address all the flaws in the asylum system. It’s unclear how it won’t end up in front of a tribunal judge or a judicial review even if implemented.

   Unfortunately the UK is and always has been a soft touch country. We would rather have 1000 fake asylum seekers than deny one genuine asylum seeker. Can apply the same across all the other abused immigration routes.

6. Migration is down

   Amount of small boats in August is in its lowest level in 5 years

   But a twitter bot said Stamer is bad on migration so that means 7/10 Brits believe Stamer is bad in migration

7. Propaganda machine be strong.

   That’s not to say he’s doing amazing, but there’s no way he’s doing badly. Immigration numbers are dropping, as well as other metrics.

8. I feel like these questions are kind of pointless.

   > A YouGov poll for The Times found that 71 per cent of voters believe that the prime minister is handling the asylum hotel issue badly, including 56 per cent of Labour voters.

   A YouGov poll [last week](https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/52795-political-favourability-ratings-august-2025) also found that Starmer had a 68% unfavourable rating, including 45% of Labour voters.

   So the reporting on his “handling” of migration is basically just his favourability. It also matches up fairly will with the 68% of the voting public who voted against him in 2024.

   > Nearly four in ten voters (37 per cent) said that immigration and asylum was the most important issue facing the country…

   And that’s pretty much just lining up with Reform support. The same with the “Which political party do you think would handle the problem of asylum and immigration best?” which is basically an “Are you a Reform voter?” poll.

   The Times helpfully shows us why, by including a large chunk of copy about Nigel Farage’s completely empty and meaningless promises to ~~give everyone a pony~~ fix asylum and immigration via “mass deportations”, with no criticism pointing out how absurd the whole thing is. So of course people who maybe aren’t as clued up on the underlying issues will think he has a solution. Fortunately they’re still a minority.

9. I honestly just wish we’d talk about literally anything else. This obsession is getting properly unhealthy and people can’t even see it any more I think.

10. If the France return deal was done properly it would be a different story, but for some reason the French put arbitrary limits on numbers!

11. Yes numbers are up for illegal immigration /boat crossings. The ‘Smash the Gangs’ sounds as convincing as ‘Stop the Boats’. They need to look at what drives people to escape from poor conditions in their own country, not stop in a neighbouring country, go on into Europe and then onto the UK. Blunkett makes some good points.

    But the other side of it is that many of the public have run out of patience with politicians on immigration generally. Being against mass immigration is no longer suppressed by calling people racists. Many people – traditional left, right and centre want immigration down in a big way. Seeing 50K a year turn up without any permission at all and get housed and fed is pissing people off.

    Blair allowed too many from the expanded EU to come in – he declined to block the expansion countries as many other EU countries did. People got fed up with the speed of change in communities and demanded lower immigration (and that was white europeans). Cameron promised net immigration below 100,000 but had no way of enforcing that while in the EU, tried to get a deal with the EU and failed. Campaigned to stay in EU anyway but people voted for Brexit to take back control. Fuckwit Boris then increases immigration (this time from outside the EU), people are really pissed off at the Tories and vote them out (even though Sunak had replaced Boris and started to reduce the numbers.

    Labour and Starmer weren’t really voted in – more that the FPTP system meant they ended with a large majority after many people had voted Reform as they wanted immigration down. Labour only got 1/3 of the vote.

    Many voters want UK politicians to look after UK people. So things like boat crossings – and Chagos Islands – are pissing people off. Respect for politicians dropped during Blair’s time (so much spin aka lies) and obviously got much worse from Boris. People are ready to call bullshit on empty slogans from Politicians. (And yes Farage should be worried if he actually gets to be PM).

12. Seven in ten what? English citizens? Students? The Times readers? The Times journalists?

13. There is only one way to truly ‘fix’ this .

    Rejoin the EU. 

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