Israelis not wanted – Half of Brits want to reduce or end Israeli immigration to UK

Nearly half of Britons want Israeli immigration to the UK reduced or stopped altogether, new poll finds.

By World Israel News Staff

Nearly half of Britons say the UK should admit fewer immigrants from Israel or none at all, according to a new YouGov survey showing a marked deterioration in attitudes toward Israeli migration over the past decade.

The survey found that 47% of respondents favored reducing Israeli immigration, including 23% who wanted fewer Israelis admitted and 24% who said Britain should allow no immigration from Israel. That represents an eight-point increase from 39% when YouGov asked the same question in 2016.

The findings place Israel among the countries whose prospective immigrants face the greatest opposition from the British public.

Russia ranked first, with 58% of Britons saying they wanted fewer or no Russian migrants, followed by Pakistan at 52%, Nigeria at 48% and Israel at 47%. Egypt and India were both at 44%, while Turkey stood at 43%.

At the other end of the spectrum, 69% of respondents were content with current immigration levels from Ireland or wanted more Irish migrants, with similarly positive results for Canada at 68% and Australia at 68%.

Majorities also favored maintaining or increasing immigration from Sweden, Germany, Japan, the US and Poland.

YouGov conducted the new survey as a follow-up to research carried out shortly after Britain’s 2016 Brexit referendum, allowing the polling company to compare attitudes toward immigrants from individual countries over a roughly 10-year period.

Respondents were asked, in part, “What countries do Britons think we should allow more and fewer migrants to come from?”

The deterioration in attitudes toward Israelis was unusual because much of the British public’s underlying view of overall immigration levels has changed relatively little since 2016.

Sixty-nine percent now say immigration during the past decade has been too high, compared with 70% a decade ago. The proportion saying it has been “much too high,” however, rose from 44% to 47%.

Attitudes toward the effects of immigration have become more negative.

Forty-three percent now say immigration has been mostly bad for Britain, up 10 percentage points from 2016, while 21% say it has been mostly good and 29% say its effects have been both good and bad.

The Israeli result therefore reflects a sharper shift in attitudes toward that particular nationality than the overall change in views of immigration.

YouGov said the increase was “presumably a result of attitudes towards Israel souring as a result of the Gaza conflict.”

The survey itself, however, measured respondents’ preferences on immigration by nationality and did not establish why individual participants opposed admitting Israelis.

Separate YouGov polling has documented a broader deterioration in British attitudes toward Israel during the years since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack and the subsequent Gaza war.

By October 2025, only 12% of Britons said they sympathized most with the Israeli side, while 38% sympathized most with the Palestinians — the weakest showing for Israel since YouGov began its post-October 7 polling.

A December 2025 YouGov survey similarly found that 34% of Britons described themselves as generally anti-Israel, compared with 14% who characterized themselves as pro-Israel. Another 36% chose neither description.

The shift on Israeli immigration was particularly pronounced among people who voted to remain in the European Union in the 2016 referendum.

In 2016, 27% of Remain voters wanted fewer or no Israeli migrants. That figure has now climbed to 41%. Among Leave voters, by contrast, opposition remained essentially unchanged at 52% in both surveys.

That pattern is notable because Leave voters remain substantially more hostile to immigration overall. YouGov found that 93% of Leave voters believe immigration over the past decade was too high, compared with 53% of Remain voters.

The partisan breakdown produced another unusual result.

Reform UK voters, who generally hold the most restrictive views on immigration, were among the most likely to oppose Israeli immigration. But Green voters — otherwise the party constituency most favorable toward immigration overall — were similarly hostile to migration from Israel.

The poll found 51% of Reform and Green voters wanted fewer or no Israeli migrants.

Labour and Liberal Democrat voters were also substantially more opposed to immigration from Israel than they were to migration from most Western countries.

The result comes as Britain’s Jewish community is also contending with historically high levels of reported antisemitism.

The Community Security Trust recorded 1,926 antisemitic incidents across Britain between January and June 2026, up 21% from the same period in 2025 and the second-highest first-half total it has ever recorded. Physical assaults rose 82%, from 74 to 135.

CST found that 787 incidents, or 41% of the total, referred to Israel, Palestine, the October 7 attack or subsequent Middle East conflicts while also containing anti-Jewish language, motivation or targeting.