Rishi Sunak's focus on immigration and Humza Yousaf's on independence ignore the real general election issue: the economy – Scotsman comment

As Rishi Sunak contemplates a devastating YouGov poll suggesting the Conservatives could be on course for a general election wipeout – with just 169 seats to Labour’s 385 – he is coming under severe pressure from fellow Tories to change course. However, the change they want is a tougher stance on immigration rather than any kind of new economic plan.

The survey also found that the SNP would see its total of 43 MPs reduced to 25. And yet Humza Yousaf appears more interested in industrial plans for his imagined independent Scotland than steps to revitalise the struggling economy of the present-day, real-life version.

YouGov’s tracker poll of voters’ most important issues shows the economy top at 54 per cent, followed by the NHS on 45 per cent, and then immigration on 39 per cent. The latter figure hit a low of 14 per cent in 2020, but has been rising fairly steadily since then as the Conservatives have made it their defining issue.

Perhaps Sunak hopes that passing his Bill to send asylum seekers to Rwanda and seeing the first flights take off will allow him to proclaim a political victory, then focus on the economy. But such is their obsession with immigration that some right-wing Tories appear to be actively campaigning against him and even contemplating a leadership challenge before the election. Would they prefer someone else loses it instead? It should be clear to all that the reason why the Conservatives and SNP are unpopular is the state of the economy.

However, despite their respective ships of populist nationalism running into the rocks of hard reality, Scotland’s two captains, Yousaf and Sunak, are insisting on steadfastly maintaining their respective courses, seemingly regardless of the damage reported from below decks. For Labour, keeping it simple with a focus on the economy would be far from stupid.