A Populist Paradox? How Brexit Softened Anti-Immigrant Attitudes

Abstract

Recent political contests across Europe and North America have been propelled by a wave of populist, anti-immigrant resentment, and it was widely expected that these populist victories would further fan the flames of xenophobia. This article reports the results of an experiment around the Brexit referendum, designed to test how populist victories shape anti-immigrant attitudes. The study finds that anti-immigrant attitudes actually softened after the Brexit referendum, among both Leave and Remain supporters, and these effects persisted for several months. How could a right-wing, populist victory soften anti-immigrant attitudes? The authors use causal mediation analysis to understand this ‘populist paradox’. Among Leavers, a greater sense of control over immigration channelled the effects of the Brexit outcome onto anti-immigrant attitudes. Individuals' efforts to distance themselves from accusations of xenophobia and racism explains the softening of attitudes towards immigration observed among both Leavers and Remainers.

The EU Referendum and Experiences and Fear of Ethnic and Racial Harassment: Variation Across Individuals and Communities in England

“…For instance, research which attempts to address whether the spike in police reported hate crimes is also mirrored in more population level selfreported attitudes is mixed. Schwartz et al (2020) demonstrate that among those who voted Leave, anti-immigrant sentiment actually softened following the EU Referendum due to a greater sense of control, and that fears of appearing xenophobic or racist softened anti-immigrant sentiment among both Leavers and Remainers. Using experimental evidence designed to uncover hidden attitudes due to social desirability bias, other research has shown that while overt expressions of prejudice against for instance Muslim immigrants had declined following the EU Referendum vote, more covert measures of discrimination remained (Creighton and Jamal, 2020).…”

Using Twitter to Track Immigration Sentiment During Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…This trend is observed for feelings towards both EU and non-EU immigrants; yet, stronger negative feelings exist towards non-EU immigrants (Dennison and Geddes, 2019). In the United Kingdom, this paradoxical trend of softening in anti-immigration sentiment, against little change in perceived levels of immigration, started in 2014 before the Brexit Referendum and has continued since (Blinder and Richards, 2020;Schwartz et al, 2020).…”

Using Twitter Data to Monitor Immigration Sentiment

“…Though, stronger negative feelings exist towards immigrants from non-EU nations than EU member states (Dennison and Geddes, 2019). In the United Kingdom, a paradoxical softening in anti-immigration sentiment has taken place since the Brexit Referendum (Schwartz et al, 2020). According to Ipsos MORI data, the share of population agreeing that there are too many migrants has reduced from 64 percent in 2013 to 45 percent in 2017 (Blinder and Richards, 2020).…”

“…These results reflect the fact that Britain has become an increasingly divided society on controversial issues, and immigration has featured as a key divisive topic (Blinder and Richards, 2020), particularly prominent during the lead-up to the Brexit referendum (Kaur-Ballagan et al, 2017). These divisions have become increasingly aligned with partisan identities in recent years (Schwartz et al, 2020) and attributed to echo chambers -patterns of information sharing that reinforce pre-existing beliefs by restricting exposure to opposing political views (Bail et al, 2018). Social media is often believed to comprise a main channel leading to selective exposure to information and political polarisation (Conover et al, 2011;Hong and Kim, 2016).…”