British people are more persuaded of the benefits of immigration than any other major European nation, according to a global survey, which has also found that almost half of Britons think immigrants are either positive or neutral for the country.
The YouGov–Cambridge Globalism survey found that 28% of Britons believed the benefits of immigration outweighed the costs, compared with 24% in Germany, 21% in France and 19% in Denmark. A further 20% of British people believed the costs and benefits were about equal, while 16% were not sure.
The findings contradict the assumption that Britain is more hostile to immigration than its European neighbours are. Britain was seen as taking a hardline and less compassionate response to the 2015 European migration crisis, while many argue concerns over immigration were the key driving force behind the Brexit vote.
But experts have detected a softening in attitudes towards immigration since that vote, which could in part be influenced by the prospect of the end of freedom of movement and the dramatic drop in net migration to the UK from EU countries, which in the last figures dropped to its lowest level since 2009.
In all, only 37% of Britons feel the costs of immigration outweigh the benefits – lower than in any other big European country apart from Poland. By comparison, 50% of Italians believe the net impact of immigration is negative, as well as 49% of Swedes and 42% of French and 40% of Germans.
The findings come weeks before the European parliament elections, where populist, anti-immigrant forces are projected to perform well across Europe.
Nigel Farage, whose anti-migrant “breaking point” poster came to symbolise the leave message in the 2016 EU referendum, is returning to politics with his Brexit party, while his former party, Ukip, continues to campaign on immigration issues.
However, the UK portion of the global YouGov survey suggests anti-immigrant messaging is unlikely to work across the party divide. While only 3% of Ukip voters thought benefits outweighed costs, this compared with 15% of Conservative voters and 42% who voted Labour.
The survey also suggested men were most open to the benefits of immigration, with 32% saying the overall the impact was positive, compared with 24% of women.
Sunder Katwala, the director of the identity and integration thinktank British Future, which last year published The National Conversation, a report on immigration in the UK, said studies were showing Britain was on the “glass half full” end of the debate.
“There’s an increasing body of evidence that attitudes, having been very sceptical, are becoming softer,” he said. “The salience of immigration has dropped significantly and there’s also been a warming up of attitudes.”
Q&AWhat is the YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project?
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The project is a new annual survey of global attitudes in 23 of the world's biggest countries, covering almost 5 billion people.
The 2019 survey canvassed 25,325 people online across much of Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia in February and March.
Questions about populist attitudes and convictions were inserted in order to derive a "populist cohort", and discover what this group of people think about major world issues from immigration to vaccination, social media and globalisation.
The full methodology can be found here.
Katwala said a softening of attitudes had been noticed by politicians and as a result the likes of Farage had changed tone ahead of the European elections.
“There’s a lot of nuance in British attitudes. The nuance was missing in the last 10 years because we were having a debate about ‘are we able to talk about immigration or not?’,” he added.
“It’s now a debate about what we should do now. Some people accept changes are coming. Some people are more empathetic because they see stories like Windrush, they see that the 3 million Europeans in the UK aren’t just a statistic but the people we see on television worried about whether they’re allowed to stay.”The survey shows Britons are particularly supportive of migrants, either unskilled or qualified professionals, if they have a job offer in advance.
Forty-one per cent of Britons agreed that unskilled labourers arriving in the UK with a job offer were good for the country, a higher proportion than in all other major EU nations apart from Spain.
Similarly, Britons showed the highest level of support than any country surveyed for qualified professionals coming to the UK with a job offer, with 80% agreeing they were good for the country – compared, for example, with just 56% of French respondents.
Conversely, Britons are less supportive than other western nations in the survey of migrants arriving without a job in search for work.
Only 14% of Britons thought unskilled labourers coming to the UK to search for work were good for the country, with only Sweden and Germany showing lower levels of support for this kind of migrant.
Britons also appeared relatively hostile to refugees. Only 29% of Britons thought people fleeing war or persecution were good for the country, less than any other EU or anglophone country in the survey. Almost half of Canadians (45%) and French (44%), in contrast, expressed support for refugees.
UK respondents also showed the lowest level of support of all countries surveyed for migrants coming to join family members who already live here, with just 22% of respondents thinking this was good for the country, compared with 56% of Polish respondents who, among the EU and anglophone countries, showed the highest level of support.