Why is there so much more anti immigration sentiment NOW?

A good friend and former teacher of mine arrived here from Ethiopia in the 60's, he laments the slide back towards racism, which he puts squarely down to self inflicted division.

As he puts it, to paraphrase, "I spend 30 years looking to be viewed as an individual, as a man, judged for who I am, and then along came some do gooders saying Black Lives Matter, and suddenly I am no longer a man, an individual, but back as part of a minority"

I feel he has a point, its all about tribal sub division now, gay, trans, black, ND, NT, etc etc, everyone wants to identify with a tribe, and guess what tribes have always engaged in warfare.

Yes. Anti-immigrant sentiment isn't universal. I live in a very MC 'leafy' suburb outside a southern city. The catchment secondary is the best performing in the county. There are many south Asian and Chinese families on my estate, all here to take advantage of the school. Many of the parents are doctors, radiographers, pharmacists, engineers etc.

Of those I know well enough to speak to about it, few tell of encountering racism.

It is largely, I think, to do with outward integration.

However, close to our city centre is an area which is overwhelmingly blue-collar, poor and Muslim. We stopped sending our healthcare students who didn't have a car to the training hospital there because they were getting hissed at and spat by the local men as they walked to the railway station.

I think social class has a lot to do with it, too.

My mother remembered racism in London in the 60s and, although I haven't experienced racism, xenophobia was blatant in the 90s and has got worse. I think Brexit was the tipping point for a certain type of person to feel they'd been given permission to air their unacceptable views out loud. (For example, shortly after the vote, more than one person said to my mother she should "go home" [to an EU country] now.) The hostile migrant policy in place before that certainly didn't help, as it made systemic racism and xenophia acceptable.

This, really. DH (not white, Muslim, highly skilled immigrant and NHS consultant) is very much opposed to further unskilled immigration and has opinions on certain (generally less-integrated) communities-religionists that might even be considered Islamophobic on here.

It’s much more nuanced than it used to be. My 8 year old mixed race DS - also disabled - has been called “P*ki” in school. (Which is too hilarious to get upset over, since none of my in-laws have even visited Pakistan and my DS was just confused). Personally, I think the left categorizing everyone who expressed any unease about integration or resources as “racist” has made actual racism more socially acceptable, on the grounds that it failed to distinguish the offensive from the mainstream.

Post edited by Mumsnet HQ to disguise a racist term that was not used with the intention of offence but which we still thought was best redacted

We've managed to have universities a long time before the skyrocketing immigration of the last couple of years.

The student route is a well worn route to circumventing the usual visa. I'm sure I will be told I'm "lying" but I've been told myself from the horses mouth by a "student" that there was absolutely no need for the study - they were very well educated in their home country but it's a route in for their family of 5.

You also need to factor in the racism and homophobia that immigrants can bring when they come from intolerant countries. Again I have sat and listened to non-white people slag off other non-white people of different religions and people not from the UK share their intolerant views of gay people to the point I said to them they will have to be careful what they say at work as they will get themselves in trouble.

Some people coming here not sharing British views of tolerance and live and let live is part of the problem.

People coming to work in shortage occupations is just a giant pyramid scheme as they and their kids also need child care, teachers, housing, doctors, dentists etc. You get one worker and need one or two more.

Migration HAS hit historic highs in the past few years - net migration hit 764,000 in 2023 and there's no particular reason to think it will go down. Those kind of migration levels coupled with a creaking infrastructure, a desperate shortage of affordable housing and a resident population who feel - and mostly are - poorer than they used to be is a recipe for anti-immigration sentiment. It just is. People will say that isn't fair, but reality never is. Also I think some of the taboos around migration in public discourse - for example the pressure to pretend that all cultures are equally wonderful - are breaking down. I'm pretty OK with saying that the dominant culture regarding women in countries like Afghanistan & Pakistan is pretty terrible & not something anyone needs in the UK, while also accepting that not all Afghan or Pakistani men necessarily have those values.

Also I think people see discomfort with higher migration levels as some kind of 'white people' thing, but right now South Africa is cracking down on migrants from its poorer neighbours, Japan remains pretty resistant to large scale migration and Iran is busily deporting hundreds of thousands of Afghans. There's also been considerable resentment towards Venezuelan migrants in South America. I'm not saying any of this is necessarily fair or humane, but its a global phenomenon.

I've not come across that tbh, but denying it may be an issue.

@Miaw111 - it is different. I grew up with overt racism but mainstream parties knew it was in their interests to not indulge it. Enoch Powell got sacked.

These days, we have political figures who have strong incentives towards a lack of racial harmony, and a lot of poor and deprived people. This is explosive stuff.

I watch this channel called evolve with Lubna and she has several Indian speakers on. It’s mostly in Hindi/urdu but she has another English speaking one also. Anyway, my point is that so many of these speakers support what Trump is doing in America in terms of controlling immigration. There is such a vast difference between the discourse on main stream media in England versus India.

Well, given the current trajectory any diversity and inclusion is absolutely for the chop at the next elections. It will all be about meritocracy (cf white blokes). I think people are a little deluded if they it will be all okay for the contribution you make. That would exclude a lot of people who are complaining in the first place.

I'm not sure whether this post was aimed at me, but...the associated right wing press has always banged the drum. They were certainly doing that 50 years ago.

Look what they're getting that you're not.
A tale as old as time.. divide and conquer.
The modern one they're staying in hotels .. wonder who got those juicy contracts?and you can be assured it's not like any hotel that any of us have stayed in.
Substandard accommodation and cheapest of cheap food=max profit.

And the eastern European women get tarred with the man stealing label

If the op wants a why then look to other comparative countries for a common factor, eg the upcoming election in Germany

It kind of depends where your dad was raised? Was he in london/ leicester/ birmingham? Somewhere diverse? Has he worked in careers where there is good diversity like the nhs, a solicitor?

I have witnessed many, many people who are not white being pretty racist or complaining about the latest influx of immigrants. In fact they tend to be much more open about it than white people from what I’ve seen.

You mention social media - do you notice more racism mainly on there, or also in real life?

But there is no last laugh is there? If you have riots in the streets where men put up barricades as to whether you are White English and the associated right wing press banging the drum then that is really different from anything in the last 50 years.

The thing is unravelling - for the first time you have these ideas in the mainstream.

There is no last laugh. The joke is on everyone

“I see this on facebook all the time. People sharing pictures”

This is a problem of ‘doomscrolling’. The algorithms send you more of what you linger on.

My Facebook feed is full of cute animals, chiropractor ’crackings’, and positive self-improvement influencers. Whenever anyone even dips their toe in the water of saying something vaguely right wing, they get piled on.

Irl, I do not witness any more skin colour-based prejudice than I do cultural.

I think that's a mass generalisation. There will always be idiots like that. Normal people, however, would know that guy's a surgeon and is contributing more than his fair share to the country.
The question this point raises, though, is WHY has the post been vacant for a year, resulting in a need to recruit from another country?
If we don't have a sufficient number of surgeons already here, the big question is why not? And what can be done to improve this figure?

Interesting post. I have a similar but fully non-white heritage. The racism my family who immigrated here (over 50 years ago) faced was appalling - they had every right to be here, and didn't deserve the "welcome" they received. In spite of that, they have done phenomenonaly well, and are definitely having the last laugh.

My siblings and I are relatively young and the racism we experienced growing up (whenever we dared to venture outside London) was disgusting.

Sadly, I actually don't thing much has changed, and it's actually the opposite - less overt and more subtle though still ever present. It all stems from ignorance and a lack of quality education.

A few things. In addition to other points made I think the general strain on the system and possibly a greater lack of integration and closer allegiance with the home country (made much easier by the rise of the internet). Back in the day immigrants were expected to fit in. Now there’s an expectation that the host country should change its values to suit newcomers. But presumably those values are what drew immigrants here.

This varies a lot according to locality.

The problem is that people are conflating "illegals" (of whom they are a tiny amount, and are usually working 20 hours a day because they have no recourse to public funds nor NHS) with anyone who isn't white. I see this on facebook all the time. People sharing pictures of brown men coming out of a hospital with the caption "I'm sure they don't get free healthcare in their country", what they didn't know (because they are too ignorant and hellbent on being racist) is that he is a vascular surgeon, who was brought in to fill a post that had been vacant for nearly one year.

People have NO problem with anyone who wants to come to Britain to work, pay taxes and contribute positively to our country. NONE.

Some people DO. Been there, done that.