dismissed the
\nsignificance of falling net migration entirely.<\/a> \u201cThose who believe these
\n figures will somehow help Starmer and or doom Nigel Farage are engaging
\n in wishful thinking,\u201d he wrote, adding: \u201cImmigration is here to stay as
\n an issue and Reform will campaign on it in Makerfield (where Burnham
\nwill contest a by-election next month) and across the country into next
\ngeneral election and beyond.\u201d <\/p>\nMany readers posting in response to the article dismissed
\nthe data and instead spouted the usual far right poison about
\n\u201cinvasions\u201d, asylum seekers \u201cgaming the system\u201d and the \u201cethnic
\ncleansing\u201d of Britain. <\/p>\n
To be fair, I\u2019ll say that the Daily Mail, another newspaper
\n famous for its anti-immigration outlook, reported the new statistics
\nfairly straight, although it made sure to mention in the headline that
\nthe number of asylum seekers (slightly) increased in 2025. (However, to
\ndemonstrate that famous phrase about lies, damn lies and statistics,
\nfigures up to March 2026 showed a 12% fall in asylum claims). <\/p>\n
Below the line, it was clear why falling migration has
\nlittle impact on public opinion \u2013 commenters just didn\u2019t believe it.
\n\u201cStrange thing about figures and statistics\u201d, wrote one reader, \u201cyou can
\n move them around to fit your narrative\u201d. \u201cThe figures are false and
\nmanipulated to look good,\u201d said another. \u201cIt\u2019s true,\u201d said one poster,
\n\u201cthe figures have been verified by Santa Claus, Big Foot and the Loch
\nNess Monster.\u201d<\/p>\n
This sceptical response would not surprise Duffy and Cohen.
\n In their blog, they\u2019d written presciently: \u201cEven if we could convey a
\nperfect reality of immigration levels and effects to people, this would
\nnot negate concerns \u2013 this is an emotional reaction to how the country
\nis changing more than a cold trade-off of pros and cons.<\/p>\n
\u201cCause and effect run in both directions, where we overestimate what
\nwe worry about as much as the other way round: this means simplistic
\nmyth-busting will have less effect than you might expect, because it
\nmisdiagnoses what is partly an emotional and identity issue.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How did the UK media cover these latest statistics? Outlets like the BBC and the Guardian reported the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[2297,18139,5,1261,6],"class_list":["post-46355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uk","tag-hate-speech","tag-migrant-rights","tag-uk","tag-uk-government","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116622411836936251","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}