The Brexit vote was evidently not just about immigration. But if there is a paramount reason for Britain’s shock decision to leave the European Union it is the seething discontent of a large slice of the public created by 20 years of historically unprecedented immigration and the insouciant response of the political class to this change—one that never appeared in an election manifesto and was never chosen by anyone.
The consensus of establishment opinion over the past gen eration—minus several tabloid newspapers—has ranged from a happy embrace of the change to a belief that it is an uncontrollable force of nature. Yet around 75 per cent of the population (including more than half of ethnic minority citizens) has consistently told pollsters that immigration is too high with the salience of the issue rising to the top of the list of national concerns in recent years. Immigration is also a metaphor for the larger disruptions of social and economic change, especially for those who have done least well out of them. In the quiet of their living rooms most people have quite nuanced views on different forms of immigration and tend to be more positive about the local story, yet immigration overall still stands for “change as loss.”
Tower Hamlets in London, the centre of the Bengali community. “The liberal view misreads the psychology of mass immigration... it is less about xenophobia and more about recognition”
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