Keir Starmer nightmare as PM branded weak on immigration by furious voters in shock poll

Sir Keir Starmer is seen as less hardline on immigration by his own Labour Party voters with a quarter of those responding to a new shock poll saying they would consider voting Reform UK.

More than 1,000 staunch Labour supporters were asked to place themselves with a number between 0 and 100, with zero representing a significant cut to to immigration and 100 standing for a big increase.

According to The Sun, nearly 60 percent of Labour voters gave an answer below 50 meaning they think immigration should come down, compared to 27 percent who thought levels should go up.

In comparison to the Prime Minister on average those scoring below 50 put themselves around the 37 mark, but tellingly they said Sir Keir would likely score around 43.

Illegal crossings across the English Channel in small boats have continued unabated since Labour came to power, however, Home Office figures could point to an overall fall in legal net immigration.

The opinion poll by JL Partners for Arden Strategies also showed that a quarter of Labour voters surveyed would consider voting for Nigel Farage's Reform UK Party.

New Home Office figures suggested the number of migrants granted citizenship could have reached its highest level in more than 60 years. As of August 19, 19,294 people had already crossed the Channel in 2024

However, the figures show a total of 118,882 people were waiting for an initial decision on an asylum application in the UK at the end of June 2024, down by 32 percent from 175,457 from the same period last year, which was the highest figure since current records began in 2010.

But the latest total is up slightly from the 118,329 waiting to be dealt with at the end of March this year, indicating a rise in the last three months of the 12-month period.

In terms of legal migration, Sir Keir could be handed some good news next week as a sharp drop in the number of foreign care workers coming to the UK amid visa restrictions could pave the way for a fall in legal migration levels.

Labour could meet its aim of cutting net migration, a raft of immigration statistics published on Thursday indicated, as the Conservatives claimed any fall was due to measures they had put in place

Overall, the number of visas issued to foreign workers, overseas students, and people joining families in the UK dropped by 14 percent - something the University of Oxford's Migration Observatory said that, when combined with rising emigration, "should mean a decline in net migration over the coming year".

A total of 1.23 million visas (1,234,817) were issued in the year to June to people arriving in the country for those reasons or through one of the Government's settlement schemes.

This is down from 1,435,372 in the previous 12-month period.

Separately, there was almost a quarter of a million (246,488) grants of British citizenship in the year to June, over a third (37 percent) more than the previous 12-month period.

Records dating back to 1962 suggest this is a new record high compared with the 23,146 granted in that year.