VOTERS TELL CAMERON TO ACT ON MIGRATION

VOTERS want the Tories to be far tougher on mass immigration, a major survey revealed last night.

Barely one in ten Britons say they are satisfied with David Cameron’s border policies.

The poll by Ipsos MORI suggests this unhappiness may explain why large numbers of Conservatives are switching to Ukip. The findings will heap pressure on the Prime Minister to end his silence on immigration during the election campaign. He has not mentioned his party’s manifesto pledges to curb EU free movement, deport more illegals and tag foreign criminals. Yet a large proportion of voters believe politicians are talking too little about migration.

A chilling report warned yesterday that human traffickers are exploiting the free movement rules to operate with impunity in Britain.

It says a modern slave trade has opened up since the EU expanded into the former Eastern Bloc. The report found the gangs:

Tell migrants they are coming here legally before stealing their passports;

Force victims to fraudulently claim

millions of pounds in benefits;

Sell women with EU passports to men who get them pregnant to claim a right to stay here;

Bring Eastern European girls to the UK for sham weddings to Asian men;

The Ipsos MORI poll found that of those who supported Mr Cameron in 2010, but now intend to vote for Nigel Farage’s party, 9 per cent are dissatisfied with immigration policy.

Only 5 per cent of voters sticking with the Tories are similarly upset. This loss of voters to Ukip could be crucial in deciding the outcome of the election on May 7.

For all voters, six in ten say they are unhappy about the Tories’ handling of the nation’s borders.

The Tories, Labour and Liberal Democrats have all avoided talking about the subject so far.

Yesterday, Boris Johnson vowed the Tories would stop migrants coming to Britain to ‘leech, bludge and scrounge off the state’.

The London Mayor, who once backed an amnesty for illegals, said that immigration had been ‘very beneficial in many respects’ for the econ-

omy. But he said the Tories were right to act to restrict benefits to new migrants to prevent people coming here to claim benefits.

Asked how to tackle immigration, he told LBC Radio: ‘Don’t tell all foreigners to bog off. Don’t take in people who want to scrounge.’

Ipsos MORI found voters consider Labour and the Tories to be as bad as one another when it comes to getting a grip on borders.

Alarmingly for Mr Cameron, only 27 per cent think the Government’s handling of immigration has been better than under Labour’s – and 26 per cent say it is worse.

The rest say both are the same. This is despite the fact Labour presided over a pol- icy of open borders in which record numbers were allowed to pour into the UK.

The 12 per cent of electors who say they are satisfied with Mr Cameron’s party – which spectacularly failed to hit his target to cut net migration to the ‘tens of thousands’ – is the lowest rating in eight years.

Despite the Tories closing bogus colleges and cracking down on non-EU migration, the Parliament ended with net migration at

‘Don’t take in scroungers’

300,000 – three times higher than promised.

The Ipsos MORI poll of 4, 00 voters – far larger than normal opinion polls – shows the electorate is becoming more worried about immigration. Some 7 per cent of Ukip supporters have changed their views since 2010, compared with 44 per cent of Conservatives and 39 per cent of Labour supporters.

The large majority of those who have changed their views have become more worried – the figure is 97 per cent among Ukip supporters, 90 per cent of Conservatives and 80 per cent of Labour supporters.

Voters say immigration is being discussed more than in 2010 – when Gordon Brown notoriously described Gillian Duffy as ‘that bigoted woman’ for daring to raise it. But 37 per cent say the country is still talking about immigration too little, compared with 27 per cent who say too much and 28 per cent about the right amount.

At the launch of last week’s Tory manifesto immigration was not mentioned in the Prime Minister’s opening speech.

Party insiders claim that, whenever immigration is discussed, Ukip benefits. Some senior figures are now urging the Prime Minister to spell out his policies for curbing net migration from both inside and outside the EU – which include measures which are likely to be popular with the electorate.