A majority of people in Great Britain support granting citizenship to immigrants working as frontline staff during the coronavirus epidemic. Polling commissioned by the charity Hope Not Hate and shared exclusively with openDemocracy shows how the crisis has radically changed the public mood towards migrants in the UK.
According to the poll, which the polling company Focaldata conducted for Hope Not Hate and the campaign group Best for Britain, three-quarters (77%) of respondents agreed that EU nationals working as doctors and nurses during the coronavirus crisis should be offered automatic British citizenship. Sixty-two per cent also backed automatic citizenship to care workers, and half felt that citizenship should be extended to supermarket and agricultural workers (50%), and delivery drivers (47%).
Support for offering passports to frontline workers crossed the Brexit divide. Among Leave voters, 72% supported offering automatic British citizenship to NHS doctors and nurses, 53% supported citizenship for care workers and 40% for supermarket and agricultural workers, while 38% agreed delivery drivers should also get automatic citizenship.
