Revisioning Britain

In the weeks before the Brexit vote there was a developing sense that the excitement and momentum were somehow with those people who wanted to leave the EU. Even in London there were signs that the vote could go against the remain side. I recall a conversation that I had with an Afro-Caribbean skilled worker who said that he was struggling with how to vote, but was minded to vote leave, as were many of his friends within the Afro-Caribbean community. He was a thoughtful person and keen to hear what I thought about remaining in the EU, but as we talked I realised that, although he was listening, he was not necessarily convinced. He was unsure, but also felt that Britain had done well in the past when it was related to the wider world, and that possibly it could do better if it was freed from European constraints and could trade freely with the rest of the world.

There was something nostalgic about the past days of empire that resonated with those who argued on the leave side that Great Britain could be ‘great’ again if it went on its own way. But my interlocutor, who came from an earlier generation of migrants, was concerned with the dangers of racism and feeling against immigrants. At the same time, however, he was impressed with the idea that we could not continue with uncontrolled migration from Europe and that the country needed to be able to reassert control over its borders. He questioned the EU notion of the free movement of labour because these new migrants threatened to keep wages low and would make it harder for people who were already here and settled to secure employment and housing. Also, they did not speak the same language; and he felt that they were somehow threatening the opportunities that had been promised to earlier migrants from the former British empire, now the Commonwealth, who had long historical links to Britain.

Somehow, I had assumed that people with migrant histories would be sympathetic to those arguing against restrictions on migration, because of the dangers of provoking xenophobic and racist feelings in the population.