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| 1 |
ID:
135880
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| Summary/Abstract |
Immigration politics in Britain have been transformed by high levels of immigration, the effects of EU free movement, strong anti-immigration sentiment and UKIP's rise. All are compounded by a more general discontent with politics and politicians. In face of claims that something must be done, politicians seek tougher controls on immigration and free movement, but these may be difficult to attain because of entanglement with EU rules, while failure to achieve stated objectives can further compound the disconnect that fuels support for UKIP.
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| 2 |
ID:
135877
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| Summary/Abstract |
It is often forgotten that, regardless of time or place, periods of high immigration are almost always periods of high anti-immigration sentiment. When ethnic change is rapid, driven by immigration or differences in ethnic natural increase, the ethnic majority often responds with a politics of immigration. This was true, for instance, in Britain in the 1960s, in the US during 1890–1925 and in interwar Scotland. I show that White British people in locales experiencing rapid ethnic change are more likely to call for lower immigration and to vote BNP. On the other hand, where there is already a high level of ethnic minorities, white opinion is less hostile to immigration: UKIP does poorly among whites in diverse areas. Habituation to change, typically within a decade, and assimilation—especially of Europeans—over a generation reduces hostility to immigration. If the rate of ethnic change slows, we should therefore expect a reduction in the salience of immigration. Ironically, because the children of European migrants are more readily accepted into the ethnic majority than is the case for non-Europeans, a shift from EU free movement to non-European skilled migrants, as is advocated by UKIP, could run counter to the wishes of its own supporters.
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| 3 |
ID:
135881
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| Summary/Abstract |
Under pressure from voters, and from other parties, Europe's centre-left has had to re-evaluate its position on migration. The UK Labour party is no exception. Public concern about large-scale immigration clearly contributed to its heavy defeat at the 2010 general election. Since then it has been slowly but surely hardening its stance on the issue, although this is by no means unprecedented: while the rise of UKIP may have upped the ante in recent months, Labour has a long history of adjusting policy in this area so as to remain competitive with its main rival, the Conservative party. Labour is now asking itself whether it will be possible to do this without challenging one of the fundamental precepts of EU membership—the right of free movement of people. Whatever the result of this internal debate between the party's ‘beer drinkers’ and its ‘wine drinkers’, Labour may still have difficulty in neutralising immigration as an issue since, for the most part, it continues to insist on giving an essentially economic answer to what for many voters is actually a cultural question.
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| 4 |
ID:
135875
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| Summary/Abstract |
Racism has been in sharp decline in recent decades yet the word, as accusation, is used more than ever. The word/idea needs to be more restrictively defined and kept for when it is really needed. When almost everyone is a racist, no one is. To this end we need to distinguish more clearly between the greater comfort people often feel among familiar people and places and active hostility towards outsider ethnic groups. We also need a more discriminating language to describe the spectrum of discrimination. Prejudice, clannishness—even in some instances discrimination itself—should be regarded as sentiments and behaviours that are distinct from proper racism.
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| 5 |
ID:
135889
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| Summary/Abstract |
Before his untimely death in 2011, Peter Mair took up the idea of ‘representative and responsible government’ from Anthony Birch’s 1964 book.1 Mair argued that the contemporary political malaise of Western democracies arose from the gap between the demands of representation and the constraints of prudence, consistency and conformity to external commitments which face a responsible government. This tension is evident in immigration policy. In responding to public opinion, the government has been drawn into making promises that it cannot honour without radically rewriting the UK’s external commitments. To fend off the threat from UKIP, the government is taking the country to the brink of leaving the European Union. Yet the promise to limit immigration apparently had to be made: it was ‘demanded’ by a section of the public that would otherwise defect to the political fringe—to a party entirely occupied with representation and unimpaired by the constraints of responsibility
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| 6 |
ID:
135879
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| Summary/Abstract |
The May 2014 European Parliament (EP) elections were characterised by the success of far-right Eurosceptic parties, including the French Front National, UKIP, the Danish People's Party, the Hungarian Jobbik, the Austrian FPÖ, the True Finns and the Greek Golden Dawn. However, a closer look at the results across Europe indicates that the success of far-right parties in the EP elections is neither a linear nor a clear-cut phenomenon: (1) the far right actually declined in many European countries compared to the 2009 results; (2) some of the countries that have experienced the worst of the economic crisis, including Spain, Portugal and Ireland, did not experience a significant rise in far-right party support; and (3) ‘far right’ is too broad an umbrella term, covering parties that are too different from each other to be grouped in one single party family.
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| 7 |
ID:
135888
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| Summary/Abstract |
Immigration policy has repeatedly failed to fulfil the ambitions of its advocates. Successive governments have neither willed the means nor been open about the obstacles in their way to restricting immigration. Disappointing results have contributed to disillusionment with the political system and help to create the ground on which UKIP has prospered.
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| 8 |
ID:
135878
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| Summary/Abstract |
In this article we explore the structural shifts which help explain the emergence of UKIP as a major radical-right political force in Britain. There are two distinct, but related, aspects to this story. The first is the changes to Britain's economic and social structure that have pushed to the margins a class of voters who we describe as the ‘left behind’: older, working-class, white voters with few educational qualifications. The second is long-term generational changes in the values that guide British society and shape the outlook of voters. These value shifts have also left older white working-class voters behind, as a worldview which was once seen as mainstream has become regarded as parochial and intolerant by the younger, university-educated, more socially liberal elites who define the political consensus of twenty-first-century Britain. We then move to consider the political changes that have further marginalised these voters, as first Labour and then the Conservatives focused their energies on recruiting and retaining support from middle-class, moderate swing voters. Finally, we show how UKIP has developed into an effective electoral machine which looks to win and retain the loyalties of these voters. Finally, we discuss the longer-term implications of the radical-right revolt, which has the potential to change the nature of party competition in Britain in the 2015 election and beyond.
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