Lies, damned lies and surveys
A pressure group is gaslighting the public about their own opinions
CHRISTOPHER SNOWDON
According to Best for Britain, a pressure group formed in 2017 to stop Brexit, the British public are not as bothered about immigration as you might think. They commissioned a survey from YouGov, the results of which were reported by Sky News like this…
‘Manufactured panic’: Immigration not near top of most people’s concerns, poll suggests
The cost of living, health, crime, and housing are much higher on people’s lists of personal worries, a YouGov survey has suggested.
… The poll, which was commissioned by campaign group Best for Britain, found the cost of living was the top issue for people both nationally and locally.
But while immigration was the second most important issue for people nationally, health was ranked second locally, followed by the economy, crime, housing, and jobs.
I was surprised to read this since every poll, including YouGov’s, has shown immigration to be one of the top two issues concerning the British public for quite some time.
And yet Best for Britain say that immigration and asylum are not even near the top and, when asked about their local concerns, we are told that it only comes seventh.
I decided to look up the survey results on the YouGov website. First, they asked people what direction they think the country is going in. 72% of respondents said it was going in the wrong direction. Of these people, the most common reason given was immigration policy. (They could pick up to five options.)
When they were asked which issue facing the UK is the most important, the top answer was immigration and asylum. (They could pick up to three options.)
This was all rather suggests that a great many people are concerned about immigration, which is inconvenient for a pressure group that wants to portray concerns about immigration as a “manufactured panic”. But they found some solace in the question which asked people what the most important issue facing “you and your community” is. On this, immigration came second behind the cost of living.
Fair enough. It is not surprising that people’s concerns for the country differ from their immediate concerns for themselves and their local community. People can be concerned about the state of the economy even if they have a secure and well paid job. Few people could honestly say that the situation in Gaza is the most pressing issue for them and their community, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t care about it.
Nevertheless, “immigration and asylum” still come second, which is definitely “near the top”. So where does the idea that it was only seventh in the list come from?
Best in Britain applied a MaxDiff analysis which subtracts the % of people who say an issue is among the least important from the % who say it is the most important. If you do this for the question about the most pressing issue facing the country, immigration is overtaken by the cost of living because 12% of respondents said immigration was one of the least important issues whereas only 2% said the same about the cost of living. But immigration is still in second place, so Best in Britain focused on the local question instead.
Using a MaxDiff analysis, the 26% of respondents who think immigration is one of the most important issues facing them and their community is partially offset by the 20% of respondents who think it is one of the least important issues. Overall, the scores are as follows:
Cost of living: +58
Health: +21
The economy: +20
Crime: +12
Housing: +11
Jobs: +7
Immigration and asylum: +6
Tax: +5
Welfare benefits: -3
Pensions: -3
Education: -6
Family life and childcare: -8
Transport: -13
Defence and security: -13
Environment: -13
Britain’s trade and relations with the EU: -19
Using this methodology, immigration comes 7th out of 16 and is one of the eight issues that more people consider to be important than relatively unimportant. Whether the MaxDiff scores are more informative than the simple percentages showing what people are most concerned about is perhaps a matter of opinion. Let’s just say that it is not how YouGov normally presents survey findings of this kind. But even if you think these are the numbers that matter – and that what concerns people about the country as a whole is not important – the media reporting has been deeply misleading and Best of Britain’s interpretation of the findings is tenuous at best.
Best for Britain’s Tom Brufatto said:
“The data clearly demonstrates that media exposure and political discourse are fanning the flames of anti-immigration sentiment in the UK, causing the government to lose support both to its right and left flank simultaneously.”
The data demonstrates nothing of the sort. There is no way that it could. People’s concerns about immigration might be a response to the record number of small boat arrivals this year or the spate of high profile murders committed by asylum seekers. It might be a response to the sheer scale of legal migration in recent years. Or it could be because of racism and tabloid newspapers. There is no way of knowing from an opinion poll that merely asked people what they are concerned about.
Brufatto’s position isn’t really coherent. Best in Britain are portraying the survey as proof that people don’t really care about immigration, and yet he seems to be saying that people do care about it but only because of “media exposure and political discourse”.
Inevitably, he tries to crowbar Brexit into it…
“Measures designed to tackle the cost of living, such as undoing the economic damage caused by Brexit through closer trading relations with the EU, will instead draw support from across the political spectrum.”
This may or may not be true, but his own polling – using his preferred methodology – shows that trading relations with the EU is considered by the public to be the least important issue of all, with a score of minus 19. Even if you just look at the raw data, only 4% said it was one of the top issues for them and their community (and only 8% think it’s a top issue for the country in general). Best of Britain’s press release somehow neglects to mention any of this.
But Tom Brufatto’s speculation is restrained compared to that of a legal aid NGO…
Saeema Syeda, of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI), said the poll “proves what we’ve been saying all along – there is no immigration crisis”.
Wow.
She said: “It’s a manufactured panic, pushed by some politicians and parts of the media to distract from what actually matters to people.”
Yes, it’s the old false consciousness trope. And yet, if we believe Best for Britain’s headline claim, there isn’t a panic and people haven’t been distracted. Make your mind up.
When Sky News says that ‘Immigration [is] not near top of most people’s concerns’, they are correct insofar as it is not near the top, it is at the top. 52% of the public think it is one of the top three issues facing the country, according to this survey. A much smaller number think it is one of the least important issues, rising to one in five when it comes to their own lives, but even this is not evidence that they don’t care about it at all. Defence and transport both score minus 13 in the MaxDiff analysis, but it would be surprising if anyone is totally apathetic about those issues.
And whichever question you look at, using whichever methodology you prefer, Britain’s trade and relations with the EU is a very low priority for the public. Best in Britain would be better off trying to drum up support for that rather than gaslighting the British people about their own opinions.
This article (Lies, damned lies and surveys) was created and published by Christopher Snowdon and is republished here under “Fair Use”
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