Is Rishi Sunak the right person to take on illegal immigration? Here's what Yahoo readers think

Yahoo UK's poll of the week lets you vote and indicate your strength of feeling on one of the week's hot topics. After 72 hours the poll closes and, each Friday, we'll publish and analyse the results, giving readers the chance to see how polarising a topic has become and if their view chimes with other Yahoo UK readers.

After one of his most challenging weeks as prime minister, including a battle to win support from his own party for his Rwanda Bill, we asked Yahoo readers for their thoughts on Rishi Sunak and immigration.

Along with facing questions at the COVID inquiry about his role as chancellor during the pandemic, Sunak has been trying to win Tory support for the Rwanda programme and fulfil his pledge to "stop the boats". But the PM has faced a rebellion from his own MPs, with those on the right of his party saying it is not tough enough.

The Rwanda plan aims to deport asylum seekers to Kigali but has suffered a series of defeats in the courts. Its latest version went before MPs on Tuesday and while dozens of Tory MPs abstained from the vote, none voted against it, leading to its approval. However, Sunak's battle is not over, with right-wing Tory factions saying they reserved the right to vote against the draft law when it returns to the Commons next year.

Yahoo News UK asked our readers if they thought the current prime minister is the right person to tackle illegal immigration, here are the results:

Our poll - which ran from Monday at midday until midday Thursday - asked: 'Is Rishi Sunak the right person to take on illegal immigration?'

It received 4,096 votes and showed three-quarters of Yahoo readers think he isn't, with fewer than one in five saying he is. Some 76% of voters said no, Sunak isn't the right person to take on illegal immigration, while 18% said yes he is, and 5% did not lean either way.

Yahoo News UK readers were also asked: 'How strongly do you feel about Sunak's performance on immigration?'

This poll received 2,019 votes with the most common vote being 0/10, indicating many readers were unenthusiastic about Sunak's performance on immigration. The average strength-of-feeling score on all the votes was 4.2.

Our original poll article can be found here

An Ipsos UK survey for the Evening Standard found that 79% of Britons believe the Conservatives are doing a bad job on immigration, with just one in 10 saying the government is doing a good job. The results were the highest and lowest respectively since the same question was first asked by Ipsos two years ago.

And as for Sunak himself, his personal popularity is definitely in the doldrums. According to a YouGov poll published earlier this week, the prime minister now has his lowest-ever net favourability score of minus 49, a ten-point drop from late November.

That's comparable to former leader Boris Johnson’s scores during his final months as prime minister.

Read more of Yahoo UK's Poll of the Week articles here