British Gaslighting: How the right wing is manipulating public opinion

With talk of invasions, swarms and tidal waves of immigrants, the right wing media and politicians are not just making our politics toxic, they’re also gaslighting the British public. Babelfish's new poll shows how effective their lies are, but also that they probably won’t be enough to get them into office.

How many of the immigrants who come to the UK do so on small boats? Ask a random Brit in the street and there’s a 32% chance they’ll tell you it’s the majority. In reality, it’s less than 5%. Meanwhile, our polling also shows that only 8% of us think that immigration has fallen in recent years. The truth is that net migration is a quarter of what it was when the Tories were in power. 

The fact-free, constant anti-immigration drumbeat coming from Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch never includes any mention of the fact that 81% of people who moved to the UK in 2024 did so to study or work. Nor does it mention that if we hit net zero migration, research shows that we could face a £37 billion hole in the UK’s budget.

The facts matter. That’s a £37 billion shortfall that our taxes would have to make up, but almost half of the people we polled would oppose paying higher taxes to compensate for net zero migration. 

Meanwhile, positive attitudes on migration are being deliberately lost in the noise. Our poll showed that 60% of Brits believe that the UK should, at the least, allow for some level of positive net migration. 

So, in whose interest is this gaslighting? While it’s clearly having an effect on how the public perceives immigration, it’s not helping Reform convince voters that they are ready to lead the country. Only 36% of respondents believe that Reform are ready to govern, versus nearly half who don’t believe that they are. 

And while his personal ratings continue to slump, little over a third of respondents believe that Nigel Farage is capable of representing people of all ethnicities, backgrounds and religions. So could this politics of division ultimately take its toll on the right wing politicians peddling it? One of the strongest findings of the poll was that 58% of us are concerned about the prospect of mass unrest and violence coming to the UK, versus only 28% who aren’t.