British Public Attitudes towards Immigration: A Quantitative Study of Public Tolerance towards Immigrants in the UK
Tamanna Rashid Immigration has been at the forefront of public and political debate in the UK as recent net migration to major international destinations reaches unprecedented levels. Yet hostility towards immigrants has historically featured in British public consciousness, shaping racial tensions that preexist in the UK today. This research highlights the dominance of immigration as a problem reinforced by British political elites and media. It investigates public attitudes towards immigration and immigrants during a period of increasing public interest. Using the latest round from the European Social Survey (ESS), it examines immigration attitudes in the UK context while disaggregating immigration attitudes contingent to the racial profile of immigrants; this approach has allowed comparisons between how white and non-white immigrants are received by host countries. Secondary analysis on data from the 2014 round of ESS including over 2000 UK respondents shows that optimists outnumber...