POLLING: British Public REJECTS Idea of Letting More Migrants In,
Contrasts with Media Narrative
by14/9/15
Over the course of
this weekend we have heard no end of left-wing politicians and media
commentators taking to the airwaves to claim that the British public
overwhelmingly support Britain accepting more migrants into the United Kingdom.
But frankly, the polling just doesn’t reflect this.
BBC anchors, Channel 4
hosts, Labour politicians and even foreign political commentators are claiming
that Britons are amenable to the idea of more refugees.
Last Friday, Channel 4’s Krishnan Guru-Murthy asked me if “my side” of the debate was
just being “nasty”, as lefties Caitlin Moran and Hella Pick enjoyed some
glorious PR coverage for their campaign to open the borders to more migrants.
The BBC’s Stephen Nolan harangued his guests for suggesting they weren’t in
favour of the government plans.
This weekend, a Labour MP said Britain should take more migrants even if hospital
waiting lists increased, taxes went up, cities overflowed, and school class
sizes went through the roof. She said we should accept people until we are
“saturated”.
And the Los Angeles Times columnist Christina Boyle wrote that “a solid majority of Britons appear to support
Prime Minister David Cameron’s plan to resettle 20,000 more Syrian refugees by
2020”.
But the polling figures simply don’t reflect these
points. The fact is the media, as well as our politicians, are lying to you.
“Quelle surprise,
Raheem!” you say. But there is scant fair reporting from the other side of this
debate, which is why I believe it is so important to make sure “my side”
has the facts to hand, and shares them with everyone they know. Here they are.
(And while Yvette Cooper’s numbers didn’t make sense, I’ve conservatively assumed
the average size of a Syrian family to be 5 people).
A YouGov poll for which the fieldwork was conducted just over a week
ago asked 1500+ Britons what they thought of the migrant crisis and the
government handling of it. The poll revealed the following:
1. 52 per cent of
people support Britain taking a military role in bringing an end to the war in
Syria;
2. 49 per cent
support “stabilising Iraq and Libya”;
3. Just four per cent
of people believe David Cameron has handled the crisis “very well”, 17 per cent
think “fairly well” and a total of 45 per cent think he has handled it
“badly” or “very badly”;
4. While 36 per cent
think “Britain should admit higher numbers” of Syrian migrants, 51 per cent
want the numbers to be the same as previous years, lower, or none at all;
5. Twenty eight per
cent of people think Britain should take more Libyans, Iraqis and Eritreans,
but 60 per cent believe the numbers shouldn’t change, or should be lower, or
none at all;
6. Just 5 per cent support taking economic migrants,
while 83 per cent think we shouldn’t raise the numbers, or should take fewer or
none at all;
And here are the REALLY juicy stats:
7. Fifty per cent (that’s right) said they want NO Syrian
“refugee” families coming into this country. Thirteen per cent said
they want between 1 and 1000, 10 per cent said between 1001 and 5000, with 9
per cent saying between 5001 and 10,000 and another 9 per cent wanting between
10,001 and 50,000 and 8 per cent want above 50,001. That means the plurality of
people want no Syrian refugees. The “more” camp, divide in itself over how many
to take, are in the minority. That blows the Los Angeles Times out of
the water. No wonder Ms. Boyle didn’t link to a source for her assertion.
8. Labour’s Yvette
Cooper said every council area in Britain should accept 10 families, leading to
a total of 10,000 Syrian families for Britain. Forty-three per cent of people
said this was “too many” while just 14 per cent of people said it was “not
enough”. Twenty-six per cent of people said it was “about right”. This
question includes “Don’t Knows” at 17 per cent, which the above figures by
YouGov excluded.
I would have thought these numbers made it pretty
self-evident about where the British public stand on the migrant crisis. But
let us see if the media reflect this accurately, or if politicians take heed of
what the people who elected them want.