Tory Focus On Immigration Has Little Appeal For Voters Moving To Labour

New polling shows how little voters currently undecided or leaning towards Labour care less about immigration compared with the cost of living and the National Health Service.

The survey shows how a focus by the Conservatives in the election campaign on tackling high levels of migration to hold off the rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform party risks failing to win over the huge proportion of the public focused on the economy instead.

Exclusive polling for PoliticsHome by strategy firm Charlesbye shows 48 per cent of people said the cost of living was their top concern heading into the General Election on 4 July, while 24 per cent said the NHS. Immigration, meanwhile, was third at 11 per cent.

Only 22 per cent of respondents said they trust the Tories to make the right decisions to fix the cost of living, compared to 43 per cent who backed Labour as the best-placed party to tackle it.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has made tackling both legal and illegal migration a central plank of his campaign to stay in Number 10, and earlier this week vowed to "halve migration" and then reduce it every year afterwards if re-elected.

His party is threatened to the right by Farage, who has been highly critical of the government’s failure to end the small boats crisis in the Channel, with 51 per cent of those cuttingly backing Reform saying it is their top issue, according to the new polling.

Conservative figures fear that a strong Reform performance on 4 July will cost Sunak's party swathes of seats nationwide by splitting the right-wing vote and helping Labour and the Liberal Democrats come through the middle.

Sunak will face even more pressure to win over people who currently intend to vote for Reform after a YouGov poll published on Thursday night