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?

I think it’s lots of things;

The perception of uncontrollable migration- small boats as an example and then the discussion of those people being given housing, benefits etc when English born people get pushed to the back

Dwindling resources - can’t rent a house affordably, can’t see a doctor, can’t access a dentist, 11 hours wait in A&E. The perception is one of overcrowding alongside inability to access things that used to be available.

Social media encouraging tribal thinking. Brexit definitely encouraged racists to be more public with their thoughts but racism was definitely around in my generation (70s onwards). I know lots of people feel emboldened to write shit anonymously online and maybe that seeps into the sentiment on the street. If you’re in a message group when you’re regularly reading and spouting National Front stuff I can well imagine you are then furious when you step into real life and see someone you perceive as the wrong colour/race/culture/religion.

i also think the terrorism we’ve had from 9/11 onwards has not helped at all. We are now deeply suspicious of Islam as a society and that impacts swathes of people negatively. Even those who aren’t muslim
but are assumed to be.

Because there’s so, so much more immigration now. It’s massively visible.

I think generally people just want to be able to have a debate without being called racist. Personally I’m pro immigration but I’m not pro open borders and atm I feel like they haven’t got the balance right.

I also think they need to get tough on foreign criminals. I was appalled after it came out that the man who threw alkaline at the woman and her children had been granted asylum even though he had x2 convictions for sexual assault. I naively thought this would never happened. I also naively thought violent foreign national criminals were deported after being released from prison.

The public rely on the state to keep us safe and policies that allow men like this to remain in the UK break down the trust of the public.

We also need to seriously improve infrastructure / housing etc. if we are going to continue importing people at the rate we have been for the last couple of years. And we will need to have conversations about benefits and pensions because we can’t afford to maintain an open borders policy but also the same welfare state that we’re all accustomed to.

My hope is for my country to find a way forward without ghettos

Genuine question, are they only considered ghettos when it's an area of predominantly non-white people?

where all men and women are treated equally, a place where everyone feels part of one society not in some way outside of it. One set of laws applied fairly and equitably to all for the good of all

You could take out every single non white person of the UK and this still wouldn't happen. The law was created by those in power to uphold those in power, it has never been a fair and equal society.

We also need to seriously improve infrastructure / housing etc. if we are going to continue importing people at the rate we have been for the last couple of years. And we will need to have conversations about benefits and pensions because we can’t afford to maintain an open borders policy but also the same welfare state that we’re all accustomed to

Housing definitely needs to be a priority, as does school provision. In my borough schools are 'amalgamating' (ie closing) but this just means cramming more students into smaller spaces. SEN provision is woeful.
Re benefits, the introduction of UC has seen a very direct correlation to the number of new claimants of PIP. There has been a 67% increase since 2017-18 to 2023-24. I don't believe that we suddenly have more disabled people, it was much easier not to work under the tax credits system. Since the migration across to UC the work commitments have not only increased, but sanctions imposed if they are not met. This was never the case on the old system. And I know from my own experience at the job centres that a huge amount of 'locals' are claiming to not be able to work due to MH issues.

I don’t think it’s entirely racism. I’m not white and my grandparents were immigrants and even I think there’s a huge issue. Previously I was pro immigration. My grandparents are amazing. They worked hard their entire lives and integrated into society. A few years ago I moved to a big city in an area that white British is actually the minority and noticed that people aren’t integrated they stick to their own groups. I’ve noticed huge amounts of anti social behaviour
fireworks at all hours of the day and night set off in extremely dangerous ways any day of the year
the school my child attends are having huge issues with children behaving appallingly and serious hygiene issues among the children (ringworm/scabies/serious tooth decay/lice…)
fly tipping is constant and the council are out weekly to clear it
In a visit to the gp this week I was told to “claim everything you can because people come here claiming everything on temporary visas and bring their whole families along” the gp is also non white.
I just think people are sick of the economic migrants that are rinsing the system and behaving horrendously

What do you have to do in order to be considered integrating?

^

Hmm, learning the English language, not committing FGM, 'honour' killings, that kind of thing?

And yes, I am privy to recent immigrants thanks

And older ones too, along the lines of Rochdale/ Oldham

It’s not social media, it’s material reality.

In the 1950s, when your grandparents came, net migration was 50,000 a year. That was manageable.

By 2015, it was 300,000. It’s now over 700,000. That is not manageable.

We don’t have enough homes for our existing population, and certainly aren’t building at a sufficient rate to meet people’s needs. What do you think happens when on top of that, we add the population of Cardiff and Nottingham combined to the mix every single year?

It is the scale of immigration without increasing the support to infrastructure (housing/education/health) and also the lack of integration into British society. The U.K. has not managed immigration that well and it is causing resentment.

This is such a naive, short sighted opinion, which is all too common among the well meaning liberal middle classes.

The plural of anecdote isn’t data. Your one lazy British woman is no more representative of all white working class women in this country than the 7/7 bombers are of all second generation Muslim immigrants.

Care work is extremely physical, emotionally taxing, often unpleasant work that is incredibly poorly paid. If you can get minimum wage working in a care home, or working in MacDonalds, most people would very reasonably choose the MacDonalds job.

If you want to attract more people to care work, you have to pay a little bit more, to beat out the many other minimum wage jobs available.

But instead of stumping up a bit more cash in the short term, our government has decided to import hundreds of thousands of extremely poorly paid care workers, who will be eligible for Indefinite Leave to Remain after 5 years, and citizenship after 6, giving them full access to the welfare state for the rest of their lives. They will at that point automatically qualify for social housing and UC top ups, given how poorly paid they are. Plus, there’s no age limit for the care worker visa - we are quite literally importing people in their forties and fifties who will not work anywhere near long enough to make up for the costs we will sustain supporting them in their retirements.

We could pay care workers a little bit more to make it a more attractive employment option, but our government prioritises short term savings at all costs, even though that means saddling ourselves with the massive long term costs of importing hundreds of thousands of low skilled, poorly paid workers from developing countries.

It will be bye bye to Labour at the next GE. The public are beyond fed up.

I think the tories and reform will end up jointly running the country.

I think it's in large part it's due to the nature of immigration now, along with how it is intersecting with the economy.

One thing is that it isn't actually particularly new to have people upset when they perceive that immigrants are getting jobs while natural citizens are unemployed, or what is probably more common, the feeling is that immigrants labour is suppressing wages or working conditions. This was a factor in the mid 20th century in some sectors like manufacturing.

Similarly if there is a lack of housing or other infrastructure and newcomers create more competition or create higher prices.

I think it should be easy to see why people would feel that way. Why would they be happy about an employer bringing in people so they can avoid paying a decent wage to their workers? That seems kind of crazy.

That's also part of the issue now, so it's about the fact that workers are feeling the negative effects of globalism (which is the point after all.)

I think today, it's also about numbers to a very large degree. Communities are stressed in certain ways by integrating newcomers, it can be done, and well, but the more people there are, the more resources it requires. And issues of housing and health services and such are at a very high stress point already.

In some cases, I have felt that the type of people coming from abroad now isn't the same as they were in the past either. This is anecdotal and may well depend on location, but many Asian immigrants I know from previous generations had many cultural similarities, good English, trades or professional skills, and integrated well. I am finding lately that there seem to be more people who struggle more to integrate, and have poor English. So possibly that could be a factor too.

I also think though there is some bias created by the media. Some seem very happy to push a narrative about racism being worse than ever, but that's not an empirical claim - it is based on an ideology. So they are very eager to spotlight that narrative as much as possible.

Exactly! It’s so true.

As well as the quantity, the nature of immigration has changed as well.

British Indians, until very recently, had the highest average earnings of all ethnic groups in Britain. The longstanding communities of British Indians who arrived in the 1950s, particularly those who came via Kenya/Uganda, are a textbook example of a successful, entrepreneurial and well integrated minority group.

But in the last couple of years, the average earnings of British Indians have collapsed and now sit well below white Brits in the statistics. This, of course, is nothing to do with the established communities but with the hundreds of thousands of low skilled, poorly paid arrivals from India since 2020.

Importing large groups of low skilled, poorly paid people into a welfare state with large wealth transfers has consequences. It makes the existing population poorer, however unpalatable that is, and at some point it makes the welfare state unsustainable, because there are far more people taking than paying in.

i dont care about unintegrated communities or whatever else. people will always stick to those who understand them and are more familiar, it's natural. immigrants are a mixed bag of people, some decent people who work hard, some exceptionally brilliant people, and some grifters and some awful people, just like any other group.

however, when we continue to import more people than we can feasibly feed and house in this country, life will become very difficult for everybody - "natives" (using that term loosely), second- and third-generation immigrants, and fresh immigrants alike.

as for why it's become an issue "now" (it's been a contentious issue for ages, but i suppose it is particularly prominent now) -- perhaps people are fed up of the promises of how great and wonderful everything will be while their material quality of life continues to diminish? not that immigration is probably the cause of this, but for the vast majority of people here, is it a net positive in their lives?

I always find it remarkable how in some occupations skills shortages mean golden hellos, bonuses, high wages - "because their worth it" attitude.

Shortages in care and it's- "why don't people do these unsocial hours for minimum wage and be barely any better off than they are on benefits- if at all, after losing housing benefit, council tax benefit, free prescriptions, free school meals...etc" somehow in care paying a wage that attracts people to work in the sector doesn't feature like it does on other sectors. If you couldn't recruit a programmer you would increase the salary and henefits package offered. More people would want to work in care if you make the job in any way more attractive.

Ghettos has nothing to do with white or non-white. It has to do with poverty, crime and anti-social behaviour. Places where the police can't safely go, where women can't safely walk alone, where the amazon driver has to lock their van to walk to the postbox. Where people are regularly stabbed or beaten up. Where no one with money would choose to live - they move away leaving only the struggling behind.

It was deliberately whipped up by various political parties as a distraction and the media have gobbled it up and given it voice and traction it should never have got. Even Labour have given it credence when they shouldn't have.

The vast majority of poor people have more in common with each other than they do with the rich, that's why it's so important they're manipulated into hating the wrong people.

It’s not about hate, it’s about lack of resources to accommodate the population already here. If we can’t make life at least reasonable for most right now, then how the hell does adding hundreds of thousands more to the mix annually help those already here?

The whole concept of race and is the distraction used to try and hush people from having an opinion. The vast majority of people that take issue with having so many more people here don’t care about skin colour or race and they felt the same about the open EU borders, when the majority of people coming here where white. That’s why Brexit happened because folk were fed up and voted to leave. So all this nonsense of hate and racism is just a smoke screen for the I’m alright Jack far left.

The public spoke years ago about mass immigration and were practically laughed at and Brexit was a mockery. All peope want is a descent life for their families and right now that’s so far away from reality that reform will be voted in next because no other government have given two shits…

Labour's approach has only increased support for Reform. People seem to be sidestepping the impact of that

It has gone up since the GE

I honestly don’t think that racism or anti-immigration is any better or worse. I’m white so my perception comes from that angle. In the eighties and nineties I remember plenty of it anyway from some family members, and having arguments with them. Most of them would be perfectly pleasant to anyone non-white they met in their daily life. I also remember going on package holidays and feeling like everyone we met wanted to dribble on about immigration once they had a drink, and always seemed to assume you would agree with them. With social media it’s just that you can see it.

It’s been part of the public discourse since day one of immigration, that some people didn’t agree with immigration. I don’t accept that people couldn’t or didn’t speak about it in the past. People were often talking about it is my memory. It perhaps depends on which circles you move in.

What are you talking about, "day one" of immigration? 🤔 There has always been movement and displacement of people. Nations and the idea of borders are newer.

People haven't always arrived in small dinghies or hid in lorries though. They also didn't destroy papers, if they had them.