As political protests against mass immigration turned to violence all over the UK, Prime Minister Starmer was quick to label them as nothing more than “far-right thuggery” organised and populated by a small number of organised and possibly foreign-funded far right racists. 

The Government announced that more prisoners would be released early from prison (including killers) to free up space for the immediate incarceration of not just those who had taken part in the violent protests but those who were deemed to have encouraged, supported or even simply shared videos of the violence on social media. Even the social media platforms were both blamed and threatened, with the Prime Minister warning them (or maybe just Elon Musk and X?) that the incitement “clearly whipped online” was also a crime — and one happening on their “premises”.

Even as this elite narrative began to fall apart (analysis of court documents shows seven in 10 of those in court lived less than five miles from scenes of violent disorder and were not roving far right activists), the Government doubled down, announcing that courts would run 24/7 with bail refused for all but minors. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper promised that people expecting to go on holiday next week would instead be in prison without remand before the weekend.  The Director of Prosecutions announced that prosecutions under Terrorism offences were also being considered.

While the Government and wider political and media elite have taken pains to emphasise that is no underlying cause for anger and discontent, and thus no need for action or reflection beyond incarcerating the perpetrators, others have been equally adamant that the risk of further violence will remain until the Government deals with the root causes. In particular public disquiet with decades of large scale legal and rapidly rising illegal (or as the Government now refers to it “irregular”) immigration.

Despite the Government and wider elite denial, polling suggests it is the “others” who have called this one right. YouGov polling shows that whilst Britons (rightly) universally deplore these violent protests (just 8 per cent sympathise with the rioters), seven in ten Britons view immigration policy over recent years as a major contributor to the violence and six in ten express sympathies with the peaceful anti-immigration protests.

And this is not an outlier either. Polling regularly shows that a huge majority of Britons want much lower immigration. Analysis from the Think Tank Onward based on MRP polling published in January this year found that nearly 8 out of 10 Britons want significantly lower immigration into the UK, which translates to a majority for lower immigration in 9 out of 10 UK parliamentary constituencies. 

And this significant majority support for lower immigration is from respondents who believe (on average) that the total number of migrants entering the UK last year was only 70,000 when the true number was over 1 million. In fact, in the two years to June 2023 nearly 2.3 million new people arrived in the UK. 

In short it seems likely that if the public knew the full extent of immigration into the UK in the past few years, support for lower immigration, sympathy with the peaceful protests and blaming the violence on “Government immigration policy over recent years” would be far higher still.

There is plenty of evidence not only that a huge majority of Brits want significantly lower immigration, but that immigration is perceived to be one of the most important issues facing the country right now. YouGov’s polling on the “most important issues facing the country” on 5-6th August has immigration as the most important issue for 76 per cent of Tory voters; 90 per cent of Reform voters and 51 per cent of all voters. Even in the midst of economic turmoil and with the health service on its knees, immigration is apparently the most important issue facing the country today for all voters.

Whilst there has been a jump in the figures since the last polling on 17-18th July (possibly reflecting the recent protests), the previous figures were not that much different. They showed immigration as the most important issue for 67 per cent of 2019 Tory voters; 66 per cent of Leave voters and 41 per cent of all voters.

 

But, say the pro-immigration supporters and members of the elite, if Brits are really that bothered about immigration, why don’t they just vote for a party promising to bring immigration down? The fact they don’t proves that this isn’t really such an important issue to them after all. 

Yet there’s the rub. For three decades Brits have continuously and continually voted for political parties promising that they would lower legal immigration, implement stronger borders and ensure asylum rules were tightened to exclude illegal immigration. The problem is, they have all misled their voters.

It is these lies and broken promises which have encouraged the public anger and indeed violent protests we are now seeing on our streets. The reality is every Labour and Tory manifesto for decades has promised all of the above (with the honourable exception of the Corbyn manifestos of 2017 and 2019 which told the truth and got electorally hammered for it), presumably because both parties believe that this is what the public wanted to hear/see delivered.

In the 2015 Labour Manifesto was written the following:

Despite the Conservatives’ promise to reduce net migration to tens of thousands, it is now higher than it was when David Cameron entered Downing Street. Broken promises erode trust.

The Labour Manifesto of 2015 was right. Broken promises erode trust. And decades of lies and broken promises, particularly in the field of immigration, are precisely why public trust in political parties has collapsed to just 12 per cent in the UK.

It is also why there is so much public anger and despondency, why the anti-immigration protests happened and yes, also why these protests turned violent. And it is also why, regardless of how many people the Starmer Government lock ups, this issue will not be resolved until the fundamental cause — mass immigration the public do not support — is dealt with.