The overt demonisation of immigrants and those with immigrant roots is intensifying in the UK and across Europe as migration shoots up the political agenda
In the past year, tens of thousands hostile to immigrants marched through London chanting send them home! A British lawmaker complained of seeing too many non-white faces on TV. And senior politicians advocated the deportation of longtime UK residents born abroad.
The overt demonisation of immigrants and those with immigrant roots is intensifying in the UK and across Europe as migration shoots up the political agenda and right-wing parties gain popularity.
In several European countries, political parties that favour mass deportations and depict immigration as a threat to national identity come at or near the top of opinion polls: Reform UK, the Alliance for Germany and France’s National Rally.
President Donald Trump, who recently called Somali immigrants in the US garbage and whose national security strategy depicts European countries as threatened by immigration, appears to be endorsing and emboldening Europe’s coarse, anti-immigrant sentiments.
Amid the rising tensions, Europe’s mainstream parties are taking a harder line on migration and at times using divisive language about race.
What were once dismissed as being at the far extreme end of far-right politics has now become a central part of the political debate, said Kieran Connell, a lecturer in British history at Queen’s University Belfast.
Immigration has risen dramatically over the past decade in some European countries, driven in part by millions of asylum-seekers who have come to Europe fleeing conflicts in Africa, the Middle East and Ukraine.
Asylum-seekers account for a small percentage of total immigration, however, and experts say antipathy toward diversity and migration stems from a mix of factors. Economic stagnation in the years since the 2008 global financial crisis, the rise of charismatic nationalist politicians and the polarizing influence of social media all play a role, experts say.
In Britain, there is a frightening increase in the sense of national division and decline and that tends to push people toward political extremes, said Bobby Duffy, director of the Policy Unit at King’s College London. It took root after the financial crisis, was reinforced by Britain’s debate about Brexit and deepened during the COVID-19 pandemic, Duffy said.
Social media has exacerbated the mood, notably on X, whose algorithm promotes divisive content and whose owner, Elon Musk, approvingly retweets far-right posts.
Across Europe, ethnonationalism has been promoted by right-wing parties such as Alliance for Germany, France’s National Rally and the Fidesz party of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbn.
Now it appears to have the stamp of approval from the Trump administration, whose new national security strategy depicts Europe as a collection of countries facing economic decline and civilisational erasure because of immigration and loss of national identities.
The hostile language alarmed many European politicians, but also echoed what they hear from their countries’ far-right parties.
National Rally leader Jordan Bardella told the BBC he largely agreed with the Trump administration’s concern that mass immigration was shaking the balance of European countries.
Policies once considered extreme are now firmly on the political agenda. Reform UK, the hard-right party that consistently leads opinion polls, says if it wins power it will strip immigrants of permanent-resident status even if they have lived in the UK for decades.
The centre-right opposition Conservatives say they will deport British citizens with dual nationality who commit crimes.
A Reform UK lawmaker complained in October that advertisements were full of Black people, full of Asian people. Conservative justice spokesman Robert Jenrick remarked with concern that he didn’t see another white face in an area of Birmingham, Britain’s second-largest city Neither politician had to resign.
Many proponents of reduced immigration say they are concerned about integration and community cohesion, not race. But that’s not how it feels to those on the receiving end of racial abuse.
There is no doubt it has worsened, said Dawn Butler, a Black British lawmaker who says the vitriol she receives on social media is increasing drastically, and has escalated into death threats.
UK government statistics show police in England and Wales recorded more than 115,000 hate crimes in the year to March 2025, a 2% increase over the previous 12 months.
In July 2024, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim violence erupted on Britain’s streets after three girls were stabbed to death at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class. Authorities said online misinformation wrongly identifying the UK-born teenage attacker as a Muslim migrant played a part.
In Ireland and in the Netherlands, protesters often demonstrate outside municipal meetings in communities where a new asylum centre is proposed. Some protests have turned violent, with opponents of asylum-seekers throwing fireworks at riot police.
Across Europe, the main focus of protests has been hotels and other housing for asylum-seekers, which some say become magnets for crime and bad behaviour. But the agenda of protest organizers is often much wider.
In September, more than 100,000 people chanting We want our country back marched through London in a protest organised by a far-right activist and convicted fraudster Tommy Robinson.
Among the speakers was French far-right politician Eric Zemmour, who told the crowd that France and the UK both faced the great replacement of our European people by peoples coming from the south and of Muslim culture.
Mainstream European politicians condemn the great replacement conspiracy theory. Britain’s centre-left Labour Party government has denounced racism and says migration is an important part of Britain’s national story.
At the same time, it is taking a tougher line on immigration, announcing policies to make it harder for migrants to settle permanently. The government says it is inspired by Denmark, which has seen asylum applications plummet since it started giving refugees only short-term residence.
Denmark and Britain are among a group of European countries pushing to weaken legal protections for migrants and make deportations easier.
Human rights advocates argue that attempts to appease the right just lead to ever-more-extreme policies.
For every inch yielded, there’s going to be another inch demanded, Council of Europe human rights commissioner Michael O’Flaherty told The Guardian. Where does it stop? For example, the focus right now is on migrants, in large part. But who is it going to be about next time around? Politicians of the political centre also have been criticised for adopting the language of the far right. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in May that Britain risked becoming an island of strangers, a phrase that echoed a notorious 1968 anti-immigration speech by the politician Enoch Powell.
Starmer later said he had been unaware of the echo and regretted using the phrase.
Germany’s centre-right Chancellor Friedrich Merz has hardened his language on migrants as the Alternative for Germany has grown more powerful. Merz caused an uproar in October by saying Germany had a problem with its Stadtbild, a word that translates as city image or cityscape. Critics felt Merz was implying that people who don’t look German don’t truly belong.
Merz later stressed that we need immigration, without which certain sectors of the economy, including health care, would cease to function.
Duffy said politicians should be responsible and consider how their rhetoric shapes public attitudes though he added that’s quite a forlorn hope.
“The perception that this divisiveness works has taken hold, he said.
