Britain and immigration

When pollsters ask people what they regard as the biggest issues facing Britain, immigration and immigrants are currently among the top answers ¹ . The rise of Reform UK in opinion polls ² , along with anti-migrant protests and increasingly strident political rhetoric, add to the sense that the British are becoming acutely concerned about the perceived negative impact of immigration.

In 1701, as the idea of a United Kingdom was taking shape, the writer Daniel Defoe described how “the multitudes of foreign nations who have taken sanctuary here have been the greatest additions to the wealth and strength of the nation.” Immigration, he was arguing, had shaped our islands for the better.     

For the last thirty years, the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey has been monitoring how that argument sits with the public in modern times.  

Back in 1995, BSA found a Britain which appeared deeply troubled by the impact of immigration.  Just 16% of people in the survey that year thought immigrants were generally good for the economy, with almost half (47%) saying they took jobs away from local people.  Using a slightly different measure, in 2011, as the debates about Brexit were hotting up, around 43% of those polled said immigration had been bad for the country economically, and a similar proportion (40%) that immigration had undermined the country culturally.  

Now we have fresh data on how the British people feel about immigration – and the results present something of a puzzle. Asked if immigrants were generally good for the economy, half of people (50%) agreed they were, with less than a quarter (23%) disagreeing.   Did they take jobs from British workers? More than half of people didn’t think so (53%), with less than a quarter of people (24%) agreeing with that proposition. 

In 2013, those numbers were the other way around with 50% saying foreigners were taking jobs from British-born workers and just 23% disagreeing.  

What about the cultural impact? Did people think the arrival of people from other countries was damaging Britain’s way of life? Forty one per cent said they thought migrants coming to live here had actually enriched the country. Just 24% held a negative view, down from 31% in the survey of 2024.

These are not findings which suggest that Britain is in the mood to pull up the drawbridge and deport hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals currently resident here. 

Yes, you can find some indications of increased concern.  A spate of news stories about foreign criminals may explain why 39% of people told NatCen in 2025 that they believed immigrants increased crime rates, up from 30% in 2023.  But anxiety about migrant crime was higher amid the Brexit debate in 2013 (44%) and a significant majority of people in Britain still don’t go along with the idea. 

In any event, the best statistical measures suggest the risk of being a victim of crime in Britain has fallen significantly ³  across a period when population increase has been driven primarily by immigration. ⁴

What is the answer to this riddle? Why are attitudes to immigrants and immigration historically so positive when the news and political agenda suggest profound concern?

One reason may be that the public recognises a distinction between foreigners coming to work or study in the UK and arguments over small boats and the asylum system. Support for Reform UK may be more about demanding that political leaders get a grip on border control and illegal migration than antipathy towards immigrants generally.

It may also be that the social shock of Polish migrants and other EU accession nationals coming to live and work across all parts of the UK twenty years ago has gradually turned into something much more positive as those arrivals have integrated and contributed to local communities.  We have become more comfortable with diversity. 

When asked what the biggest issues are for the country, I wonder if quite a lot of people answer based on what is in the news or on their social media feed - treating it as a current affairs quiz question rather than a measure of personal anxiety.  

More research is needed, but the headline is that the British remain broadly positive about immigration and immigrants when the political debate is focused on the negative impacts. Daniel Defoe would be smiling!