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?

New Labour virtually invented "racist dogwhistles about immigration" as a distraction tactic. That mealymouthed phrase "legitimate concerns" first came out of Yvette Cooper's mouth.

Anyway yes, the answer is decades of increasingly hysterical right-wing media frothing about immigrants exploiting, on the one hand, liberal complacency about how "racism doesn't exist any more", and on the other the racism that had never gone away in Britain. Politicians trying to placate that frothing and eventually just jumping on the bandwagon. And here we are.

This. There is still a lot of racism out there in "polite society". And people are polite, but what they say in private is a totally different thing. Social media exposes it in a way people did not see before.

So you don't think people can have legitimate concerns about nearly a million people (net) moving here in one year when we already have a housing shortage?

And therein lies the problem. This is the attitude of the majority of the political elite in this country.

It’s the blame game

it used to be teenage girls getting pregnant and getting all the housing

Because this country is sinking and being bled dry.

It's because the World is getting over populated.
Too many people for some countries to feed and house - so they swarm to other places which are also under pressure for housing, green space.
Some newcomers expect medical services and education while the long term residents are paying higher taxes.

People are more aware of needing to preserve wild animal and bird habitats and to leave waterways and bushland as pristine as can be.

People want low milage food to eat. They like their own farmers to grow vegetables under strict health guidelines instead of eating imported crap.
No one likes to see concrete poured over meadows.
The trees and the environment want to stay flourishing - it means clearer air for us all.

It's best for people to stay where they are born, if they can, and do their best to plant trees and not consume too much during their lifetime. If every country looked after the needs of their own environment well and discouraged over population people would not want to leave their homeland and culture . War and invasion sometimes puts a stop to people caring for their trees and water. Then people flood out to cause havock on neighbouring countries.

Then those neighbours are upset.
It's not rocket science. If people see destruction of fields and disrespect for their culture out of their windows they are sad.

Propaganda and indoctrination. It's terrifyingly similar to the 1930s.

When you have the likes of Trump and Farrage egging people on what do you expect?

Do you know a lot of immigrants are living in unfit conditions and contrary to belief they have barely anything to live on.

And therein lies the problem. This is the attitude of the majority of the political elite in this country.

An issue for politicians rn is they can't address the underlying issues, not within their political remit for this current gov. So they can only try for other headlines which won't do anything.

And without doing that pressure will go up. As it does mounting tactics will be used to close that down, including what you see on here

In the end voters will just vote in change, look at the EU going through the same

I think you are right that things have changed though I am unsure if it is new or whether we just see it more due to social media.

There is a pattern throughout history that when people feel resources are squeezed, they turn against the "other" in society. The biggest example in recent history is Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.

The fact is there are some genuine reasons for people to not want migration including wage stagnation, difficulties accessing basic services, housing etc. That said, the fault lies with successive governments not prioritising infrastructure because, frankly, that doesn't reap rewards for years and they are normally out of office by then.

The elephant in the room is also that there have been a number of murders in the UK in recent years and the perpetrators have been from minority backgrounds (not all of them obviously!) and so people's cognitive biases lead them to think Muslim = terrorist, which is demonstrably ludicrous.

TLDR: When resources become scarce, people resort to blaming and demonising the "other". This isn't new.

But white British people can't express the views that my colleagues do without being shouted down on MN and left wing media as bigots and racists.

'Left wing media,' what the fuck is that then? the Guardian and the Mirror, because thats the only fucking left wing media I can think of in this country. And all the social media platforms are owned by Trump lackeys, so where is it?

As to 'white British people shouted down' , immigration has been the number one issue for bigots and racists forever, we can't have a normal discussion about it because racists and bigots shout up whenever we do.

If you want to know why immigration is such a big issue this link explains it perfectly

And after only 6 years, they’ll be eligible for citizenship, giving them full access to the welfare state for the rest of their lives - and given how poorly paid they are, that will make them automatically eligible for social housing, UC top ups etc.

Importing hundreds of thousands of low skilled, poorly paid people into a welfare state with large fiscal transfers makes that welfare state unsustainable.

The fact they are so poorly paid is a massive part of the problem!

As I said upthread, my (ex) front line BGS professional team are all non western immigrants.

Working 1:1 with several, I got to know some reasonably well.

There was a Nigerian guy who was okay at the job, tho pulling the odd 'sickie' to go to a ££ agency job (under an umbrella company, tax offsetting all over the place) elsewhere (it's a small professional world...) in the knowledge there would be no consequences for getting caught... he told me there was a consensus that we were all mugs deserving of what we got! He showed me a 'newsletter' he subscribed to from Nigeria which was basically ''scam' of the month'; he described how in online interviews westerners made 'allowances' for poor quality video, I mean, what can you expect from Nigeria? 🤔- in fact disguising the fact the person you were interviewing wasn't the one who'd be walking into your department 3 months later, pointing out 'white people' struggle to differentiate African features. There was an updated list of who you could buy references from, what key words to use for benefit interviews; the list went on. He himself had a wife, 3 kids and his mother over here, on a base salary of £37k.

I think he was 💯 correct. We're mugs and they know it.

It’s not propaganda. It’s material reality. In 2015, net migration was 200,000 a year, with the majority coming from EU countries. It’s not over 700,000 a year with the vast majority coming from non-western countries.

That is a massive change and people can see the impact. Importing hundreds of of thousands of low skilled, poorly paid workers, as we have done since 2021, makes us poorer. We have a generous welfare state with large fiscal transfers - we are adding to the number of net takers while the number of net contributors is shrinking. We are on a very dangerous path.

Because immigration used to be accepted, but now it's too many and we are losing our identity as we are being swamped by values and cultures alien to us, where immigrants don't integrate, can be hostile towards our own traditions and values, and create their own little bubbles. There came a tipping point, and people are now voicing that.

You can just see what a disaster Brexit was. Some whites voting for less migration from
anywhere, and immigrant communities from
Old Commonwealth countries voting because they believed it would benefit them and make visas more available to those countries.

Of course both things do not work. And racism is not sophisticated.

T turn the question around:

Why would the population of any nation be happy to add hundreds of thousands of people to the population when:

There is a housing crises
There is a health care crises
There are problems with adequate school spots
When the country is densely populated and already sacrificing agricultural land

And furthermore, why would the working class population be happy to add hundreds of thousands workers in lower paid jobs who will allow the wages and benefits in those jobs to stay low?

It seems pretty weird to imagine people would be supportive of that?

That old scare tactic. Label them as bigoted and racist and they’ll shush and keep their legitimate concerns to themselves. Bore off

Indeed. Some might call it “luxury beliefs” held by those who at the present time remain largely unaffected due to cushions of secure employment and housing, perhaps high incomes, inherited wealth, living in areas that haven’t been developed as yet beyond pleasant little ethnic restaurants and coffee shops.

I would ask the same of the high risk and deaths from trafficking and lack of control

Why do we see that as a good system?

What a load of rubbish. To compare it to one of the worst atrocities and all of the millions of lives lost because one nutter had ideas of grandeur is frankly disgusting.

What happened to those millions of poor people during the mass genocide should not be compared to how a country decides
to open/close its borders! FFS!

That lunatic wanted to erase an entire population and tried his very best to do so. To compare the mass murder and slaughter of millions of Jews to the current debate is utterly disrespectful and you should be embarrassed.

As to 'white British people shouted down' , immigration has been the number one issue for bigots and racists forever, we can't have a normal discussion about it because racists and bigots shout up whenever we do.

Out of interest what do you think would constitute a “normal discussion” and at what point does someone become a “racist / bigot”? There are a lot of people on this thread making pretty reasonable points about the current situation. Do you view this as a normal conversation or is it tipping into racist and bigotry?

Because of the amount of immigrants here and the consequences of that. When your family arrived, it was novel and the consequences had not yet become apparent.