Starmer immigration fury as quarter of Labour voters consider Reform move in shock poll

Sir Keir Starmer is facing an immigration backlash with a shock poll revealing more than a quarter of Labour voters would consider voting for Nigel Farage's Reform UK in the next election.

A new poll suggests many of party's voters consider themselves to the right of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer on issues including immigration.

More than half (57 percent) of Labour voters feel migration to the UK should be reduced, while 27 percent believe it should increase.

The poll of more than 1,000 people who voted for Labour in their landslide General Election victory showed that 26 percent would 'seriously consider or consider' voting for Reform in the next election - although only two percent said they would vote Reform if there was an election tomorrow.

The JL Partners poll, created for Arden Strategies, showed that 14 percent of the Labour voters polled would have considered Reform UK - which won five seats - as their second choice in the last election.

This was ahead of the six percent who said they would have chosen the Conservatives, but below 36 percent for the Liberal Democrats and 22 percent for the Green Party.

Earlier this week Home Secretary Yvette Cooper promised a "surge in enforcement and returns flights" to reach the highest rate of migrant removals since 2018 while announcing a plan to crackdown on organised immigration crime.

Other measures pledged by the Home Office include the immediate recruitment of up to 100 new specialist intelligence and investigation officers at the National Crime Agency (NCA) to target, dismantle and disrupt organised immigration crime networks.

There will be increased detention capacity, including 290 additional beds at Campsfield and Haslar Immigration Removal Centres.

Ms Cooper said: "We are taking strong and clear steps to boost our border security and ensure the rules are respected and enforced.

"Our new Border Security Command is already gearing up, with new staff being urgently recruited and additional staff already stationed across Europe, working with European enforcement agencies to find every route in to smashing the criminal smuggling gangs organising dangerous boat crossings which undermine our border security and putting lives at risk.

"And by increasing enforcement capabilities and returns we will establish a system that is better controlled and managed, in place of the chaos that has blighted the system for far too long."

Home Office 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 at the end of June 2023, which was the highest figure since current records began in 2010.

Nearly all (99 percent) of people arriving in the UK in the year to June 2024 after crossing the Channel claimed asylum or were recorded as a dependant on an asylum application, the Home Office said.

Overall, just under a third (31 percent) of the total number of people claiming asylum in the UK in the year to June had arrived on a small boat.