Proportion of voters who think migration 'mostly bad' for UK jumps nearly a third over ten years amid ministers' failure to stop the boats - with more Remainers even agreeing

Published: 12:43, 10 August 2026 | Updated: 12:44, 10 August 2026 THE proportion of voters who think immigration has been ‘mostly bad’ for the UK has jumped by nearly a third amid ministers’ failure to stop the boats. A poll found more than four in ten (43 per cent) Britons now think migration has been mostly bad for the UK, up from 33 per cent a decade ago. Just one in five voters said they thought migration has been ‘mostly good’ for the country. Attitudes have even hardened among people who voted to remain in the European Union in the 2016 referendum. Among these voters, the number who said migration had been bad for the country has risen from 12 to 22 per cent. More than 200,000 small boat migrants have arrived in the UK inn recent years, hardening attitudes towards immigration, the YouGov poll suggests  The YouGov survey, for The Times newspaper, also asked voters which countries they support migrants coming from. More than a fifth said no migrants from Nigeria should be allowed, while a quarter supported a complete ban on Pakistani nationals settling in the UK. A similar number (24 per cent) would stop migration from Israel, while 34 per cent would stop migration from Russia. Green party voters were the least likely to say they wanted less migration to the UK, but when it came to Israel they were almost as hardline as Reform voters. Matthew Smith, of YouGov, said: ‘We found a ten-point increase in the number saying it has been mostly bad (to 43 per cent) and a nine-point reduction in the number deeming it “both good and bad” (to 29 per cent), meaning the negative view of immigration has supplanted the balanced view as the most commonly held among the wider public.’