“It's the Demography Stupid”

“It's the Demography Stupid” Ethnic Change and Immigration Restriction in England Eric Kaufmann, Birkbeck College e.kaufmann@bbk.ac.uk; twitter: @epkaufm; web: sneps.net;

Source: Ipsos MORI, 'Attitudes to Immigration' (forthcoming). Issues Index question: “What do you see as the most/other important issues facing Britain today?”. Issues Index base: representative sample of c.1,000 British adults age 18+ each month, interviewed face-to-face in home. Home Office statistics based on ‘Year ending’.

Response to Catholic Growth • 1923: the Church of Scotland's Church and Nation committee issues report entitled The Menace of the Irish Race to our Scottish Nationality • 1932: 'We are losing some of the best of our race stock by migration and their place is being taken by those whom whatever their merits, are not Scottish' - novelist John Buchan at Parliament in November 1932 • 1952: the Church of Scotland's Church and Nation committee condemns Irish Catholics for displacing the 'native Scots population' from industrial Scotland and derided them as a 'compact community largely of alien origin' (Devine 2008)

Source: Plymouth Elections Centre

Cultural Liberalism Individualism - - English Ethnic Nationalism - + Integration/ Assimilation/ Boundary Shift Immigration and Minority Growth

Desire to reduce migration, by class and proportion of minorities in ward, white British only

Desire to reduce migration, by class and proportion of renters, among ward residents, white British only Source: Home Office Citizenship Survey (Office for National Statistics and Home Office 2010, 2011)

Minority Growth Matters more than East European Immigration for Opinion • Minority changes at low-scale and levels at large-scale heighten white opposition • Minority levels at low-scale reduce opposition • White Other/E European share not associated with opposition to immigration • Minorities: whether UK-born, English-speaking, social housing, employed, matters little. Mixed, Muslim, Caribbean – sporadic effects • Contact and Habituationof native white population to the local presence of minorities, even if segregated/foreign-born/Muslim, seems key

Immigration and Immigration Opinion in the US & Canada since 1965 Source: Wilkes, Guppy & Farris 2007

Conclusion • Minority change associated with more English ethnic nationalism • Minority levels can mean less opposition: but requires residential integration • Local contact with and habituation to minorities, rather than deep integration, reduces opposition to immigration • Assimilation has historically reduced ethnic nationalism

“It's the Demography Stupid” Ethnic Change and Immigration Restriction in England Eric Kaufmann, Birkbeck College e.kaufmann@bbk.ac.uk; twitter: @epkaufm; web: sneps.net

“It's the Demography Stupid”