Mags Campbell

One of the most relentlessly stupid ideas in British politics is that the public just randomly develops certain sentiments. And therefore MPs are duty-bound to act on them. Anti-immigration attitudes, as such, are treated as if they just float up from the ether. You could of course argue they’re a reaction to the “actual presence” of migrants—but we know by countless pieces of research that hostility is strongest where migrant & refugee presence is minimal, and weakest in the most diverse, cosmopolitan areas. The truth, of course, is that these sentiments are manufactured. Politicians, journalists, and specific policies—like warehousing people seeking asylum in deprived towns, instead of giving them the right to work—actively produces and amplifies resentment. Decades of headlines and politicians' statements give these manufactured “concerns” shape and urgency. The insanity of it all is having helped invent the problem, politicians now claim they’re merely responding to the “legitimate concerns” of voters. The only rational response to this cyclical doom-spiral is to erode the material base (austerity, regional inequality) on which right-wing populist "concern merchants" find fertile ground.