More in Common have produced research on attitudes to deporting people who come in small boats, uninvited, by characteristics.

A quarter will deport genuine refugees.

Most will remove those without a refugee claim

Most people are balancers, even on those who arrive via small boat.

Two-thirds would remove those without a valid claim. Half would protect many with a valid claim.

Elsewhere, a fifth are still rejectionists for the principle of protecting refugees (in a controlled way) but 7/10 want to do that

Let Taliban have refugees who fled persecution back is a 15% proposition

Protect refugees in an orderly and humane way is a 70% proposition

Hearing claims of those on small boats sees many people torn between wanting control & to protect those who need it Tearing up treaties isn't popular

Yet debate being driven by the radicalised and the racists, like Elon Musk and Rupert Lowe who say Farage is weak & should deport millions more

There is an excessive media tendency to accept this caricature of frustrated public opinion & to assume there are no limits on how tough/cruel it would go

I am going to publish more on attitudes that illuminates this in a week's time, as part of a policy report looking for workable solutions that can secure consent

If the media treated Reform as they do others, not a force of nature to which normal political rules will never apply, they would notice that they can't double their 2024 support without appealing to more normal voters, as More in Commons show, though the radicalised base pull them right