Racism underlying western anti-immigration policies

Tuesday 30 January 2026

The contemporary resurgence of anti-immigration movements across much of the Western world is often presented in the language of administrative prudence. Advocates speak of housing shortages, strained public services, security risks or cultural cohesion. These concerns are not always invented, and to dismiss them out of hand would be both politically unwise and intellectually lazy. Yet beneath this surface discourse there frequently lies a deeper and more corrosive element: a racialised fear of the ‘other’, expressed in coded language but rooted in ideas of hierarchy, exclusion and inherited belonging. It is this toxin of racism, rather than immigration itself, that poses the greater long-term danger to Western democracies.

Racism rarely announces itself openly in modern Europe or North America. The moral discrediting of biological racism after the Second World War rendered explicit claims of racial superiority socially unacceptable. Instead racism has evolved. It has become culturalised, bureaucratised and euphemised. Migrants are no longer said to be inferior; they are said to be incompatible. They are accused not of lesser intelligence but of alien values, insufficient gratitude or excessive fertility. The vocabulary has changed, but the underlying logic remains the same: a belief that some groups do not truly belong, regardless of their legal status or personal conduct.

History offers sobering parallels. In late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Europe, mass migration from rural areas and across borders accompanied industrialisation and urban growth. In the German Empire and later the Weimar Republic, economic insecurity and rapid social change were increasingly blamed on minorities and newcomers. Jews, Slavs and Roma were depicted as internal threats, undermining the nation from within. These narratives did not begin with exterminationist intent. They began with complaints about jobs, housing, crime and cultural dilution. The step from resentment to persecution was gradual, normalised and, crucially, legalistic.

A similar pattern can be observed in the United States after Reconstruction. The formal abolition of slavery was followed not by racial equality but by the construction of the Jim Crow system, justified in the language of order, tradition and public comfort. African Americans were portrayed as socially disruptive and culturally deficient, a danger to public morals and economic stability. Immigration restrictions in the early twentieth century, particularly those targeting Southern and Eastern Europeans and Asians, were likewise framed as measures to preserve national character rather than racial purity. Yet the racial assumptions underpinning these policies were explicit in private and obvious in effect.

In Britain, the post-war arrival of Commonwealth migrants prompted anxieties that were channelled through respectability politics. The rhetoric of figures such as Enoch Powell avoided crude racial slurs, but its imagery of invasion and civilisational collapse relied upon a clear racial subtext. Powell’s speeches resonated not because they introduced new fears, but because they legitimised existing prejudices by giving them a veneer of historical inevitability and rhetorical polish.

What unites these historical episodes is not simply racism, but the failure to confront it honestly at an early stage. Liberal societies repeatedly convince themselves that prejudice will fade on its own if left unaddressed, or that economic growth alone will dissolve social tensions. In reality, unchallenged racial narratives metastasise. They harden into political movements, influence lawmaking and eventually reshape institutions. By the time their consequences are undeniable, reversing them becomes costly and traumatic.

Combating the racist undercurrents of anti-immigration movements therefore requires more than moral condemnation. It demands political clarity and institutional courage. First, legitimate policy debates about migration must be disentangled from racialised insinuations. Governments have a right, and indeed a duty, to manage borders and plan for population change. But when policy is framed in language that attributes social problems to the intrinsic nature of migrants rather than to structural failures, it crosses a dangerous line. Precision of language matters. So does the refusal to indulge dog whistles for short-term electoral gain.

Secondly, historical literacy is essential. Societies that forget how easily ordinary grievances have been weaponised in the past are prone to repeating the same mistakes. Education systems should not treat racism as a closed chapter resolved by past victories, but as a recurring phenomenon that adapts to new conditions. The study of inter-war Europe, segregationist America and colonial governance should not be abstract or moralistic. It should emphasise process: how exclusion becomes normal, how laws follow prejudice and how democratic systems can be hollowed out without a single coup or revolution.

Thirdly, integration must be understood as a mutual process rather than a test imposed upon newcomers. When migrants are expected to assimilate into an idealised national culture that is itself undefined and selectively enforced, failure is inevitable. This failure then becomes evidence for further exclusion. Historical experience suggests that societies which invest in equal access to education, housing and political participation reduce ethnic tension more effectively than those that rely on surveillance, restriction and symbolic hostility. Inclusion is not naïveté; it is risk management.

Finally, leadership matters. Moments of demographic change require voices willing to resist simplification and scapegoating. In the 1930s, too many European elites chose accommodation with xenophobic movements, believing they could be controlled or diluted. They were wrong. The cost of that misjudgement is etched into the continent’s history. Today’s leaders face a less dramatic but no less consequential choice: to confront the racial assumptions embedded in anti-immigration rhetoric, or to normalise them through silence.

The toxin of racism does not merely harm those it targets. It corrodes trust, distorts policy and weakens the moral foundations of democratic states. Immigration can be managed; borders can be regulated; social pressures can be addressed. Racism, once embedded in political culture, is far harder to eradicate. The lesson of history is not that migration inevitably produces conflict, but that fear, when racialised and left unchallenged, reliably produces injustice. Western societies ignore that lesson at their peril.