Its best-yet showing in a national race has, nevertheless, thrust into the national limelight a political movement that is part of a wave of anti-immigrant populism surging across Europe. The outcome of the Feb. 28 vote, coupled with national polls showing UKIP support at an all-time high, seemed to terrify Britain’s three traditional parties.
I thought the UK Independence Party was about opposition to being governed by Brussels. Is the reporter’s characterization of the party as virulently anti-immigrant correct? Or is this an attempt on the part of those who side with Eurocrats to demonize their opponents?
Probably another example of causal density being tough to extricate, ie do people like them for their anti-immigrant policies or anti-Brussels stance? I have little knowledge of the UK, so I can’t say if either is even true, just pointing out that it’s tough to extricate the party appeal of policies like that generally. For example, are Republicans more popular because they say they’ll run up the debt less and not grow govt as fast or because they say they’ll keep the immigrants out and preserve “traditional marriage?”
It’s about internal EU borders, which is EU policy. This was embraced by the (last) Labour government, but even they are now apologizing for letting things go to far. The immigration under question is chiefly migration of workers from central and eastern “new europe” countries. There’s also the perception/meme that non-European immigrants gain entry to permeable EU countries (Greece and Italy) and then move through internal borders, which is probably not as much of a real concern but something the UK has no latitude to address so it’s a target. It’s fairly difficult to directly immigrate to UK from outside EU.
Here’s UKIP’s official policy on immigration: http://www.ukip.org/content/ukip-policies/2994-immigration-and-asylum-ukip-policy
Two other things to consider:
1) UKIP support is low in general. They won the Eastleigh by-election arguably because Labor and LibDems split the vote. There’s mid-term lashback against both the Tories and the LibDems. Eastleigh is not, as the Post insinuates, a blue-collar area (therefore expected to be racist), it’s a very LibDem area: outer commute from london in a gentrified rural setting, combined with an aimless historical high street area needing support (I used to live almost in eastleigh). Anyway, the result is arguably spurious rather than a sea change in party politics.
2) Labour under Blair was basically “progressives”, Labour now is basically back to “unions” under Milliband the lesser. With that, neither the Tories, UKIP, or Labour are pro-immigration, leaving only the LibDems to support progressive immigration policies, and they’re junior in coalition. Support for immigration is definitely going to be driven lower without any party in a place to play the race card.
There was a bizzarre story a few weeks ago about a UKIP-supporting foster family whose “children – who are European migrants – were removed by social workers who accused the unnamed couple of belonging to a “racist party”.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20476654
The inverse of xenophobia is oikophilia. And the inverse of xenophilia is oikophobia. Somehow I don’t think a policy of xenophilia and oikophobia is geared to produce the best outcomes (imagine if you loved everyone but your family), but apparently xenophobia is the worst thing ever.
Can we please put to bed the notion that opposing liberal immigration policies is tantamount to xenophobia? It’s very simple: if people like Red Ken Livingstone and the other socialists infesting the halls of power in Europe are proponents of mass immigration, anyone who isn’t a New Labour fanatic ought to be asking themselves why that is.
bjk, are policies based upon irrational fears (or desires) ever really good policies producing the ‘best outcomes’?
Oh, yes, because opposition of immigration and wanting to preserve your nation and culture intact is always irrational. How is that libertarian hypocricy hanging?
Trolling my comments now, are we Petar?
If you notice I was responding to bjk’s use of words. You’ll also notice that bjk answered this question simply and concisely, with no insults, snark, or sarcasm. You’ll further notice that I’ve never addressed you as such either. You would do well to follow our example.
You seem to agree with me that policies based upon irrationality are probably wrong. You also seem to be saying that ‘wanting to preserve your nation and culture intact’ is *never* irrational. Is that what you mean? Can that be true?
Russian noble: “Communism? Don’t be such an alarmist, it can’t be that bad . . .”
Native American: “Look, they’re smiling! I’m sure they just want to mind their own business. Don’t be such a sourpuss . . . “
LOL! Point taken! I suppose I was taking a strict denotation of the word ‘xenophobia’.
That said… might jittery Russian nobles or a wary Iroquois brave have pointed to a purely rational source of their concern?
The heading of this post is another example of this blog’s inconsistent adherence to the principle that one should take “the most charitable view of those who disagree.” As noted by Jeff above, the heading seems to assume that support for more restrictive immigration policies is equivalent to “xenophobia.” That’s not particularly charitable.
It would seem to me that Arnold is using the word to charactarize the tone of the article in describing the political party, not nessicarily restrictive immigration as such. Based upon the article (or even just the snippet above), do you think it’s fair to one to call UKIP’s immigration policy xenophobic, or no?
Arnold,
UKIP tries to be all things to all people. When it spoke at the Oxford Libertarian Society four years ago, it tried to present itself to us as the most libertarian party. But it offered little in the way of actual policies. And a one degree removed acquaintance was kicked out for being too libertarian.
But at the moment it seems to be riding on the tidal wave of anti-immigrant and anti-immigration sentiment flooding the UK, rather than any particular hate of the EU (most people are not fond of it, and would probably leave, but most don’t get too riled up by it).
So I’d say their opposition to the EU has become secondary to a whole host of populist and bad policies like entirely eliminating university fees, opposing gay marriage, reducing immigration even further than the extreme and destructive current Tory policies.
I’m struggling to understand the commenters who say you can be against immigration but not xenophobic. The same commenters go on to say that *they* dislike immigration because all the foreigners will be socialists, and thus will pollute the local polity.
How is that not xenophobia?