From 2016 to today, Britain has seen the biggest fall in hostility towards immigration since records began. Elections analyst Patrick English compiled data from across the British Election Study, the British Social Attitudes survey, the European Social Survey, European Values Study, and World Values Study. Pretty comprehensive…
My updated estimate of British public opinion on immigration since the 1980s.
— Patrick English (@PME_Politics) April 22, 2020
Higher values indicate more of the population expressing negative views about immigrants/immigration across questions from @BESResearch, @NatCen's BSA, the @ESS_Survey, @evs_values and @ValuesStudies. pic.twitter.com/A11213csHq
Far from media narrative, hostility peaked under the Labour government, where concern grew over the first decade of the century. It has been falling ever since, with the most dramatic decline coming during and in the wake of the 2016 referendum. It appears as if UK attitudes have now surpassed their last least hostile point, at the end of 18 years of Tory government in the 1990s. It looks as if voters were always more worried about a lack of control than net immigration figures…
The BBC’s Nick Robinson was quick to argue that the fall in concern had been taking place before the referendum, which, whilst true, ignores the point that the decline turns into a collapse – 2016.
I'm sorry but in that graph it's quite clear that there's a collapse in concern after 2016. It might well be extending a pre-existing trend that pre-dated 2016 (possibly from when the referendum was announced in 2013), but there's definitely a huge drop after 2016.
— Andrew Lilico (@andrew_lilico) April 22, 2020
At least he’s acknowledging that concern has fallen. Guido doubts these facts will get in the way of prevalent media narrative…
