Why is there so much more anti immigration sentiment NOW?

[GreyWasp]

Half my family are Indian and came over in the 50s. My British Indian dad (born here) said he has always been very lucky to have not experienced much hate and discrimination. He has a wide friendship network of people from all backgrounds. I’m not saying racism doesn’t exist. Not at all, just that the environments my dad was placed in outright racism was minimal. And he felt pretty much like a normal British lad going to school, uni, clubs, bars etc. My white grandparents had their concerns in the 90s when my parents married mostly in regards to potential bullying any future grandchildren would experience but really they were fine with their marrying. I have genuinely never had one negative experience (granted I have been in somewhat privileged situations in middle class areas in the South plus am white passing but do look ambiguous when tanned).

In recent years I have noticed a shift (for the worse) in terms of negative sentiment towards immigrants/poc. For me, it’s the worst it’s ever been. I certainly did not feel it 10/15 years ago. I see SO many racist comments on social media. Was not the case previously.

Im just interested in having a discussion why this could possibly be the case? People are definitely more woke now than they have ever been.

Is it the social media sites themselves? Less moderation? More political influencers?
More media attention?
People looking for an excuse to blame the economic decline (pandemic, brexit, col etc)?

Just curious what people’s thoughts are?

Enormous increases in immigration in the last year or two after the public voted for Brexit in order to be able to have control of immigration. After Brexit the Government had complete control of this immigration (granting visas) and betrayed the public allowing immigration to skyrocket.

Moving towards a million people coming in a year is too much straining all infrastructure and not allowing time for people to integrate properly into existing communities.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/283287/net-migration-figures-of-the-united-kingdom-y-on-y/

A quick google tells me that we need to be building 300,000 new homes every year to cope with the current rates of migration. We already know how much rents are rising, there’s threads on here almost every day from people who cannot afford to stay in their current homes but cannot find anywhere reasonably priced or suitable to move to. Furthermore schools, hospitals, dentists will be required, increased traffic on roads etc. How can the incoming population not be a drain on current resources, with this is mind? It’s just head in the sand to say that there are only benefits and no negatives to the current rates of mass migration.

People who live in cities are seeing it every day but they try to talk about it and get told it’s social media scaremongering or they need to stop reading the DM. Right here on this thread.

Out of your million legal immigrants half of those are students (450k last year). Which we need to keep our universities alive, paying huge fees. Yes, that's definitely changed recently with unis having to tout themselves abroad to pay the bills.

From what I can make of the office of national statistics data, most of the remainder are on work visas coming over as care workers or for the NHS. Some for skilled professions.

Again, people are very keen to talk about cutting immigration but this is why no government has been able to do it. You cut NHS worker visas, the NHS shrieks and patients suffer. You cut students, unis shriek.

Illegal immigration is a whole other box of frogs and of course should be halted but no one seems to have the magic answer. Not locking people up in hotels with nothing to do all day except drink seems to be a generally good idea.

It's easy, but the answer's not popular.

The simplest answer is...it's the easiest dog whistle in the world - "Things are shit, and it's because of those people who aren't from here and aren't like us", and it got even easier after 9/11.

The unfortunate fact, though, is that the birth rate has been dangerously low for decades, and it's falling. We're actually below the point of replacement now (significantly so, in fact), such that we aren't creating enough new humans to replace the ones who're dying. A corollary of that - which holds true for now, and will for at least the next 30 years or so - is that we're also not making enough new workers to replace the ones who're retiring.

Combine that with the fact that (unbeknownst to many) the state pension in this country is not some massive savings pot, but rather paid to the current retirees by the current workers, and you have a massive hole in the budget (on top of the fact that those old buggers are daring to live longer, thus costing more in public services).

That's why we need more and more immigrants; we simply don't have enough workers to support the existing commitments to our old folk, and the proportion of old folk is growing all the time because we're making fewer replacements.

However, this is a long and nuanced answer, and the politicians have run out of other excuses, so...yeah, it's all the immigrants' fault.

I think it is the illegal immigrants that anger the public. Of course it’s about money, infrastructure and resources but it’s the same principle as inviting someone you want to your house as opposed to them walking in uninvited and unwanted. And yes, I understand about colonialism by the British/the British just invading but it’s not the same and times have changed.

The asylum hotel is only required because of deliberate slower processing of asylum seekers

But what would you cut?

It's easy to see on the office of national statistics what the visas were granted for.

roughly half - student visas.
about 40% - skilled worker visas for people like NHS and including care workers as we don't have enough here
another 10% or so - family / spouses

If you cut the students, the unis will go broke.
If you cut the skilled worker visas businesses will scream (they do need to jump a lot of hoops to demonstrate skills not easily available in the UK already)
If you cut NHS roles we end up with even fewer nurses and more grannies dying of sepsis

It's not that easy.

Changes are not just here, look at the EU current political shifts

Because right wing newspapers, Tory governments and Reform have been pushing that agenda.

It is about scapegoating and redirecting people's anger at the cost of living and inequalities towards immigrants so they don't question the incompetence and greed at the top...

There has been a lack of long term planning and investment when it comes to affordable housing, healthcare provision, social care and instead of addressing that we have had governments that instead point the finger at immigrants.

Not to mention the fact hat successive governments have done sod all to address illegal immigration, preferring instead to come up with silly and costly gimmicks like the Rwanda scheme to get headlines in the Daily Mail and the Sun.

Add to that social media and the internet.

Right wing media and bots with the assignment to destabilise Western culture.

The maths of this don’t quite stack up. Yes the birth rate is slowing and people are living longer, but the population is growing rapidly, through immigration, at a rate greater than is needed to cover the shortfall in people of working age (also the pension age is increasing).

But where will they go after they've been processed?

I was reading something not long before Xmas about the number of asylum seekers who are homeless, and the charity was concerned about the really high number that are set to become homeless once they're processed.

Immigration can be legal and illegal.
People are fed up with the illegal side of it.
It's a strain on housing, infrastructure and government resources.

COL doesn't help, folk are struggling and seeing constant photos on social media of illegal immigrants being handed phones, hotel rooms, money....And higher crime rates.

You need to distinguish between attitudes to immigration and immigrants.

Mass immigration, especially among the lower skilled and those less willing to integrate, hasn't delivered the benefits promised by politicians. So it's reasonable to ask whether the system needs changing. That's rational political discourse.

People are much less inhibited publicly since Brexit, which was a strongly anti immigrant vote in many areas.

I think overall there was a lot of naivety about the degree of integration in the UK which is quite limited. The riots and commentary in the right wing newspapers show that quite clearly that a lot of voters did not agree. It's just they feel empowered to say so in public; the conversation never stopped in private.

I'm not anti-immigrant but immigration needs to be a more controlled manner than it currently is. It's not racist (or anything else -ist) not want a complete open doors policy.

How can the incoming population not be a drain on current resources, with this is mind?

The truth is that without immigration our already-on-its-knees NHS would completely fall apart. Hospital wards are being run by Indian and Filipino nursing staff. Many consultants are being recruited in from overseas. Immigrants are paying hefty visa fees for every person in the family and this includes an NHS fee. Contrary to what you read on social media, the overwhelming majority are not in social housing (nor would they even be entitled), or on benefits. Regardless, a lot of the "illegal immigrant" talk on facebook community groups just means anyone who isn't white. They have no idea where they are from, what their status is or who they are. They aren't white though, so they must be a threat.

We don't have a "complete open door policy".

Because the country is busting at the seams. The NHS can't cope, too many ppl wanting a free service. Families having or bringing multiple children here and expecting to be housed, fed and watered.

Schools full and children's needs not fully being met. There are some schools now where English is a second language!

Im no racist I'm all for migration. But we are a tiny island with a failing education system and failing NHS etc there's waiting lists as long as your arm same in housing.

I'm not sure why you felt the need to write that, because I didn't say we did.

Agree about the nhs. I was in icu recently and 90pc of the excellent nurses were Asian. They had been offered great packages to come over during covid. They spoke about coming over in phase one or two of covid.

Why?

Pressure on housing, pressure on schools, pressure on the NHS, pressure on other infrastructure.

People who have spent a lifetime contributing to the UK Exchequer find themselves struggling to get a doctor's appt for their loved ones while watching economic migrants being housed and fed.

When money is tight people will fight for resources.

Yes exactly. There are some really deluded people who think the conversation is is about nationality or lawfulness. No. It's about skin colour. There are new mealy mouthed phrases to deal with this issue so you don't automatically sound like the BNP of course, with innocent sounding phrases for certain groups.

45,755 people arrived in small boats in 2022, 36,816 in 2024 (according to BBC). In 1975 that number was around 800. There are so many people wanting to escape their countries for a multitude of reasons and it is a really big problem for many countries.

Is the anti-Polish sentiment also about skin colour?