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Poll shows 47% of Brits now want fewer or no migrants moving here from Israel
You Gov poll shows Brits have a more negative view of immigration in 2026 than in 2016
Nearly half of Britons now say they want fewer or no migrants from Israel moving to the UK, according to a new poll—an increase since 2016 and a sign of shifting public attitudes.
A new YouGov poll finds that 23 percent of Britons want fewer migrants from Israel, while an additional 24 percent want none at all.
This marks a notable rise in negative sentiment toward Israeli migration compared to ten years ago, reflecting an overall shift to a more restrictive mood on immigration in 2026.
Meanwhile, only five percent of respondents said the UK should accept more Israeli migrants, and 24 percent were content with maintaining current levels.
Support for restricting Israeli migration has grown, with 47 percent now wanting fewer or no migrants from Israel, up from 39 percent in 2016—an eight-point increase over the past decade.
YouGov attributes this change in attitude toward Israeli migration largely to the recent Gaza conflict, which has contributed to a souring of public opinion toward Israel.
Britons are most likely to say they want fewer or no migrants from Russia (58%), followed by Pakistan (52%) and Nigeria (48%).
Russia had not been at the bottom of the table in 2016, having experienced a 13-percentage-point increase in the number of Britons wanting fewer or no migrants from the country in the intervening ten years – the largest shift in this direction for any country.
This is doubtless a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Typically, public attitudes are more pro-migration from developed, first-world countries, particularly in the Anglosphere.
Almost seven in ten Britons say that we should allow more or the same numbers of migrants from Ireland (69%), Canada (68%) and Australia (68%), with most of the rest answering “don’t know” (20-21% – a figure largely consistent across all countries we asked about) rather than wanting to see fewer or no migrants from these nations (11-12%).
Likewise, migrants appear to be largely welcome from countries like Sweden (64%), Germany (62%), Japan (58%), the US (55%) and Poland (53%).
The public are also slightly more likely to back more or the same number of migrants coming from Brazil, Thailand, Argentina and South Africa than wanting to see reductions, and are about equally split when it comes to Mexico and China.
Britons are also now most likely to say migration has been mostly bad for the UK (43%), a 10pt increase from 2016, and compared to 21% who say it has been mostly good and 29% ‘both good and bad’.
Britons are now more likely to want fewer or no migrants from Russia, Israel, India and the USA than in 2016.
Criminal history, skills in areas with shortages, and English proficiency are the most important factors Britons say should be taken into account when deciding whether to let an economic migrant come to the UK.
Voters differ most on a migrant’s religion, which 67% of Reform voters see as important but only 12% of Green voters.
Looking at how the 2024 electorate answered this question shows that most Greens (54%) see immigration over the last decade as having been primarily good for the country, while 63% of Tories and 81% of Reform voters believe it has been mostly bad.
Labour and Lib Dem voters are much more divided.
Those who elected Keir Starmer into office in 2024 are most likely to answer ‘both good and bad’, at 39%, followed by 31% who tend more towards the positive and 23% towards the negative.
While their Lib Dem counterparts are most likely to think immigration has been mostly good (35%) and otherwise split between 28% who think it has been mostly bad and 27% who see it as having been both good and bad.
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