Suella’s dream is Sunak’s electoral nightmare
The Supreme Court yesterday ruled that the Government’s plans to remove asylum seekers to Rwanda is unlawful. Rishi Sunak has since said that his Government would introduce emergency legislation to show that Rwanda is a safe country for asylum seekers, as well as negotiating a new treaty with the Rwandan government.
But, new research conducted by Labour Together before the Supreme Court ruling shows:
Labour’s 5 point plan on immigration is more popular with voters. The public strongly prefer Labour’s policy on immigration compared to those of the Conservatives. Labour’s policies have an extremely high net approval of +40 points.
The Rwanda policy is a significant drag on approval of the Conservatives’ own plan. The Rwanda agreement makes the Conservatives’ migration policies less appealing to voters, reducing net approval by 12 points.
The polling, conducted by YouGov, compared public attitudes to both Labour and Conservative immigration and asylum policies, and took the form of two tests. The first tested whether voters preferred Labour’s asylum policies to the Government’s asylum policies. The second tested the net appeal of: a) Labour’s asylum policies, b) the Conservatives’ asylum policies including the Rwanda agreement and c) the Conservatives’ asylum policies excluding the Rwanda agreement.
Test 1: Labour’s Five Point Plan vs the Government’s Migration Policies
Data from the first test revealed that when their policies were put side by side, the public preferred Labour’s migration plan to the Tories. Two in five (42%) Britons said that they preferred Labour’s plan, compared to around a quarter (27%) who preferred the Conservatives’ plan.
Test 2: With or Without Rwanda
The second test, which looked at approval of each plan individually, showed significant support among Britons for Labour’s policies on immigration and asylum, with the Tory plan much more divisive.
A majority of the public (59%) approved of Labour’s plan, with only one in five (19%) disapproving. This gives Labour’s plan a net approval score of +40. Even among Conservative 2019 voters, more respondents approved of Labour’s plan than disapproved (52% approved vs 30% disapproved). The same was true among Leave voters (52% approved, 27% disapproved).
The Conservatives’ plan on the other hand was much less popular with the public, both when the Rwanda policy was presented to respondents and when it was not.
Without the Rwanda policy, half of Britons (50%) approved of the Conservatives’ plan, while around a third (32%) disapproved. This gives the Conservatives’ plan a net score of +18, some 22 points lower than Labour’s net score of +40.
When the Rwanda policy was included, approval for the Tories’ plan fell. In this scenario, approval fell to 44% and disapproval rose to 38%, narrowing the net approval by 12 points to +6.
Elsewhere in the polling we asked respondents "In your own words, what phrase would you use to describe the Conservatives policies on immigration?". The resulting 'word cloud' shows just how divisive their approach is. While words like 'Strong', 'Tough', and 'Right' are prominent, they sit alongside 'Inhumane', 'Racist', and 'Ineffective'.
If Rishi Sunak pushes on with the Rwanda plan, he is pursuing a policy that makes his government’s already divisive plan on immigration and asylum even more unpalatable to the electorate. This will come as welcome news to a Labour Party whose work over the past year to lean-in on the issue of immigration and present voters with a robust, workable plan is clearly paying dividends.
Methodology
Labour Together commissioned a poll with a nationally representative sample of 2,059 adults in Great Britain. The research, carried out online by YouGov, was conducted between 13th - 14th November.
