In 2018, LinkedIn reported that 96 per cent of UK businesses’ hiring strategies were being affected by the Brexit referendum. Since 2020, the UK has been struggling with a slow economy, increasing inflation and a drop in international investment. (Agencies)
Recently, public outrage sparked by the killing of three children in the United Kingdom’s Southport by a UK-born teenager of African origin was diverted towards immigrants and non-white people by far-right groups across the country. The reasons for the flare up and riots fit perfectly — “popular” anger at a falling economy — but the causes behind the economic downfall as espoused by the far right are far from accurate. Immigration from Asia and Africa was not a wreck that Britain’s economy suffered; it was a quick fix that the British ruling class found to an already wrecked economy.
In 2018, LinkedIn reported that 96 per cent of UK businesses’ hiring strategies were being affected by the Brexit referendum. Since 2020, the UK has been struggling with a slow economy, increasing inflation and a drop in international investment.
The outflow of workers from the European Union — estimated at 4,60,000 in 2022 — created a vacuum that was tackled by implementing fresh, skill-oriented immigration policies which attracted more non-EU immigrants than others.
Instead of addressing the deepening inequalities in society, the rise in working-age poverty and the stagnant real wages that frustrate the UK’s working class, the far right chose to mobilise against both British and immigrant Muslims, Asian and African-origin populations. Essentially, they targeted a sizable section of the UK’s new workforce that held the country steady after the disruption caused by Brexit in 2020.
The Office for National Statistics and Annual Population Survey data shows that less-skilled workers from outside the EU held steady in sectors like manufacturing, construction, transportation and storage, wholesale and retail, accommodation and food. And in more skilled sectors, such as healthcare, education and IT, non-EU workers more than compensated for losses of those from the EU due to the country’s liberal job visa policies.
A Goldman Sachs study conducted earlier this year pointed at higher inflation in a post-Brexit UK than in other advanced economies, with the country’s consumer prices up by 31 per cent since 2016 compared to 27 per cent in the US and 24 per cent in the EU. This adds to the woes of working class Brits whose real wages have risen only by 1.6 per cent, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Instead of questioning the mismanagement that marred the 14-year legacy of Conservative rule, many chose to channel their anger against immigrants by spreading misinformation. Instead of confronting a “free-market” system, which tried to bridge a post-Brexit gap in the country’s job market by hiring immigrants rather than upskilling a pre-existing labour force and ensuring better benefits to domestic labourers, they chose to be racist — to attack non-white people and Asian-owned businesses across the country.
Pointing at the immigration and refugee numbers to divert attention from flailing domestic conditions helped the Conservative Party’s short-term post-Brexit survival, but it clearly failed the interests of the working class, irrespective of racial identity.
Lack of access to basic amenities like social housing and immediate medical attention has added to the general discontent among lower-income populations. But immigration is one of the few solutions that the country has to improve systems in shambles, like the National Health Services. Immigrants have become crucial to the medical sector as British doctors, who are underpaid and deeply undervalued, keep on migrating to countries like the US and Australia for better opportunities. Experts also opined that immigrant labour would be necessary if the government takes up a major public housing initiative.
In short, the othering of non-white racial groups and immigrants in general by the Conservative regime, fuelled by Tory-friendly tabloids and online agitators, created a polarised environment. But whether a possible attack on immigrants — a clear ventilation to a self-choking economy — was something the country could afford at its worst period, was far from their thoughts.
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
First uploaded on: 16-08-2024 at 19:17 IST
