21 November 2022

Half of public think Home Secretary is doing a bad job, poll suggests

21 November 2022

Half of the public think Suella Braverman is doing a bad job as Home Secretary, a new poll suggests.

The survey by Ipsos found that 11% of people thought Ms Braverman was doing a good job while 50% disapproved of her performance.

Even among those who voted Conservative in 2019, support for the Home Secretary was limited. Just 20% of 2019 Tory voters said she was doing a good job while 33% said she was doing a bad one.

The poll, published on Monday, also found a lack of trust in both main parties’ ability to handle immigration issues.

Only a fifth of voters said they trusted the Conservatives’ policies on asylum seekers, immigration and the small boat crossings while around a third said the same about Labour’s policies.

Some 70% said they did not trust the Conservatives on immigration while 52% said they did not trust Labour’s policies.

Gideon Skinner, head of political research at Ipsos UK, said: “This continues the criticism on this issue that we saw under Boris Johnson and Priti Patel, even among the Conservatives’ own voters, for whom this is of particular importance.

“They don’t though show much sign of preferring Labour on immigration. Even though Labour are ahead on this nationally, the public do not have a lot of confidence in either party, and instead the Conservatives will hope that the announcement of a new deal with France on Channel crossings will start to address voters’ scepticism, although fully regaining people’s trust remains a big challenge.”

The figures are based on a poll of 1,000 British adults carried out between November 4 and 8 before the Home Secretary signed the new deal with France on combating small boat crossings.

At the time, Ms Braverman was facing strong criticism over conditions at the immigration processing centre in Manston, Kent, which was overcrowded.

On Sunday, it was revealed that a man had died in hospital after falling ill at the processing centre but the circumstances of his death are not yet known.

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