Liberal Nationalism, Imagined Immigration and the Progressive Dilemma

Liberal Nationalism, Imagined Immigration and the Progressive Dilemma

CHARLES LEDDY-OWEN

Abstract

The article critically evaluates liberal nationalist perspectives on immigration by drawing on findings from a qualitative research project undertaken in 2014 among White British interviewees in England. From one perspective the study’s participants’ attitudes seem to support arguments made by David Goodhart and other liberal nationalists regarding immigration, social trust and integration. However, further analysis suggests that these attitudes are to a very significant extent drawn first from partially imagined ideas surrounding immigration and second from potentially unreliable sources. These findings thus provoke the question of whether social trust and notions of a national community are actually being disrupted by immigration or whether they are being disrupted by prejudiced nationalist and xenophobic perceptionsabout immigration and immigrants. The article will conclude by arguing for more nuanced research into attitudes towards immigration and in favour of a sceptical approach to nationalist frameworks for interpreting society and politics in Britain today.

Keywords: attitudes to immigration; nationalism; liberal nationalism; social trust; qualitative research

Introduction

The rise of UKIP and theapparently increasing salience to voters of immigration politicsmust beconnected to wider questions surrounding society and community in contemporary Britain. Much of the time this connectionis viewed throughnationalistframeworks of interpretation, with immigration seento be –variously and to differing extents –disturbing and underminingnational borders, the national economy, culture, story, and so on. Such nationalist interpretationshave long been theterrain of the conservative or radical right, as recently exemplified by UKIP’sstridently anti-immigration platform. Nationalism has also, however,often provided a basis for more politically progressive perspectives on immigration and belonging within the nation-state. Perhaps the most prominent, substantiveengagement on the left with British nationalismin recent years can be found in the work of David Goodhart.Drawingon theories of‘liberal nationalism’,which will be introduced below, Goodhart’s central argument is that the sense of a common British nationality,which he believes is required for a liberal democracy and redistributive welfare state to function effectively,has been severely undermined byimmigration[CL1]. [KB2]

What is liberal nationalism?

Theories of liberal nationalism emerged during the 1990s in the work ofpolitical philosophers David Miller and Yael Tamir.[1]For liberal nationalists, only nations can engenderthe mutual trust, norms of reciprocity andpractices of redistributive taxationrequired for a liberal democracy and welfare state to function effectively.[2]In short, without the social bonds provided bynationality,the legitimacy of both the welfare stateand, potentially,democracy more broadly may be threatened.

The trickle-down effects of liberal nationalist theory on British party politics can perhaps be detected in Gordon Brown’s Britishness drive and Ed Miliband’s ‘One Nation Labour’ project. A more direct link can be found in the work of David Goodhart, most prominently in his recent book The British Dream.[3]Like Miller and Tamir, Goodhart suggests that the nation is the core basic structure by which democratically legitimate, liberal polities are and should continue to be formed. However, the emphasis of Goodhart’s interpretation of liberal nationalism relates to concerns surrounding Britain’s ethnic diversityfollowing postwar and more particularly post-Blairimmigration. While immigration plays a relatively minor role in Miller’s and Tamir’s accounts of liberal nationalism, both raise the potential practical and ethical problems it can cause the nation. For Miller, national culturesare essentially fluid, so immigrationis not necessarily a problem. Where immigration can becomeproblematic for Miller,however, is ‘when the rate of immigration is so high’ that resources and ‘mechanisms of integration [such as schools and other state services] may be stretched beyond their capacity’. In such cases ‘the absorptive capacities of the society in question’, and thus the crucial mutual trust and ‘shared sense of nationhood’, are threatened and it becomes legitimate to reduce the immigration rate.[4]

Reviewing evidence drawn from secondary sources, conversations with an array of academics, politicians, policy-makers and a tour of ‘places of high minority settlement’,[5]Goodhart finds evidence for precisely this state of affairs in contemporary Britain. The upshot of Goodhart’s considerations iswhat he calls the ‘progressive dilemma’ faced by the left in today’s Britain. The progressive dilemma suggests that those of a progressive political bent must choose where we stand in the tradeoff between ethnic diversity and ‘[t]he fact that as we become more different from one another in lifestyle, values, ethnic and national origins, we become less willing to sacrifice, trust and share’.[6]For Goodhart, this dilemma is exacerbated by the sheer number of immigrants but also by decades of multiculturalist politics and thinking advocated or passively accepted by a political class in thrall to pro-immigration and pro-diversity rhetoric.Goodhart thus advocates drastically reducing recent net migrationalongside a strengthening of the ‘national idiom’,[7] a reinvigorated sense of Britishness whichhe hopes will counteract what he portrays as the liberal left’s generally elitist and ‘morally self-righteous’ universalist rhetoric which fails to take into account the tradeoffs outlined by the progressive dilemma.[8]

There is no doubt that this kind of anti-immigration platform strikes a chord with much of the British population today, as suggested by polling data, the meteoric success of UKIP, Miliband’s regular apologies for the previous government’s policies and the coalition government’s Immigration Bill and net reduction agenda. Important questions remain about what anti-immigration attitudes mean to those who hold them, however, and about how this relates to issues of social trust and to nationality. The remainder of this article will appraise and critique attitudes towards immigration in relation to the liberal nationalist thesisby exploring data drawn froma recent research project.

Gosport and immigration

The research findings presented here are drawn from a study undertaken in early 2014 in a suburban area ofGosport, a town of 80,000 people on the south coast of England. Gosport has had very little immigration in comparison to much of urban England, with 94 percent of the population classifying themselves as ‘White British’ in the most recent census. The study consisted of in-depth, semi-structured qualitative interviews with twenty-five participants asking about immigration. The youngest participants were in their 30s and over half of those interviewed were in their 60s or above. Some participants were interviewed as couples. All were white, all were homeowners and all but one participant described their economic situation as comfortable.

The reason for choosing the particular area of Gosport was due to its proximity to Haslar Immigration Removal Centre, and subsequent articles drawn from the study will explore participants’ perspectives fromtheoretical perspectives influenced by sociology and geography. However, following the invitation to take part in the Political Quarterly roundtable related to this special issue, which also coincided with the process of data analysis, it occurred to me thatpatterns emerging from the data wererelevant to the liberal nationalism debates currently underway within political science and policy circles. Furthermore, when reading or hearing about recent research relating to the rise of UKIP and attitudes towards immigration in Britain it became clear that I had sampled an interesting demographic and locale in relation to this literature—namelya white, middle-class population in an overwhelmingly ‘White British’ area of southern England. Recent survey analysis undertaken by Ford, Goodwin and Cutts suggests that average UKIP voters areover 50years old andbased in relatively prosperous areas of the south,[9]and recent research undertaken by Eric Kaufmann, as well as the 2014 local authority and EU Parliament election results, have found a strong relationship between predominantly‘white’ areas, anti-immigration attitudes and support for UKIP.[10]Though party politics was not broached directly in the interviews,the study is thus well placed to add to this burgeoning—and, many would argue, urgently important—research area.

The kind of qualitative research method practised here seeks to explore the deeper meanings and nuances which are difficult to capture in survey research.The conclusion to the article will consider the findings discussedbelow as they relate to and potentially complement surveyresearch. In what follows, the names of all participants have been changed.

Participants’ attitudes towards immigration

All participants held views that were to some extent positive towards immigration in social, economic or cultural terms, and many expressed sympathy for asylum seekers and refugees. However, for all but one participant anypositivitywas qualified in ways thatresonate with the liberal nationalist position. The most common pattern found in the data suggests that Britain can only take a certain amount of immigration for economic reasons:

Marie (60s): I do think probably the amount of people that have come to this small island…is getting a bit top heavy isn’t it.

Ray (60s): It’s getting rather overcrowded in this country, the infrastructure and the rest of the schooling, and the housing…The whole thing is not geared up to the amount of people that we have here I don’t think. [pause] The National Health Service is creaking…They’re all crammed into this little country.

Jamie (40s): I’m very aware of the issues about how many immigrants can you take into a country which is very small and overpopulated in certain areas and has…a recession, and job issues.

Variations on the term ‘small island’ were used by nearly all participants in relation tofears surroundingpressured or dwindlingeconomic and stateresources. Ray’s concerns about thestrain put on the NHS and schools by the increased populationwereparticularly common, as were Jamie’sconcerns relating to jobs. There are thus parallels between these perceptions about immigrationnumbers andMiller’s liberal nationalist argument that if ‘mechanisms of integration [are] stretched beyond their capacity’, in this case in economic terms,then the rate of immigrationshould be questioned.These broadfears surrounding the economic effects of immigration were, furthermore, associated by participants with the character and behaviour of immigrantsthemselves, as the following excerpts demonstrate.

Caroline (30s):I think the problem is…welfare entitlement. If people want to come here and work, brilliant, [but] it’s [a problem] when people come here, are attracted to it, and are able to get all of the welfare benefits.

Bob (60s): It does seem unfair that they’re coming in sometimes, we’re told, to cash in on the benefits system.

Stephen (70s): Well I mean you know some of them are coming over with no intention of working… [Ruth talks over Stephen]

Ruth (70s): Pakistanis are a nightmare.

Participants expressed concerns about immigrants viewedasbeing savvyinways ofsuccessfully avoiding employment and makingbenefit claims from a welfare stateportrayed as overgenerous. For some older participants theseviews are associated with particular migrant groups or ethnic minorities, such as ‘Pakistanis’ for Ruth, and sometimes withMuslim ‘fanatics’.Younger and older participants alike sharedBob’s and Caroline’s concerns that immigrant welfare-dependencyis unfair, particularlyfor those within society—immigrant or not—who do work and pay taxes.While younger participants, such as Caroline elsewhere in her interview, often drew comparisons between perceived immigrant welfare-dependency and what they saw as similar patterns among settled working-class residents of Britain, for nearly all participants a more critical perspective was taken with immigrants. These patterns thus again lend support to the liberal nationalist thesis, and specifically Goodhart’s progressive dilemma, as for participants in this studythe trust required for a redistributive British welfare stateseemsto beunderminedto a significant extent in relation to questions of immigration, immigrants and ethnic diversity.

A minority ofolder participants alsoexpressed strongconcerns relating to the integration of immigrants and/or ethnic minorities, with the distinction between these categories often blurred:

George (60s): I mean there are places in Leicester and Birmingham…and I think it’s[immigration is] just far too much, and locals get pushed out [...]I did have to go up to Birmingham about eighteen months ago…and I just ended up in an area [in his car]…and it was just at school time, and honestly I felt, well it frightened me…it was literally like downtown Karachi…and I just thought, no this cannot be, this is not good, because you just felt A) a stranger in your own country and B) I actually felt intimidated.

Norman (60s): I think it’s a good idea to have immigrants, but as Enoch Powell used to say they should be integrated in the community… [There should] not [be] mass immigration... That’s where the problems are… [For example, with] no-go areas.

Thomas (60s): If [immigrants] want to come in and start…[saying] ‘we want Sharia law’, well…you can have Sharia law back in the country where you came from, you’re not going to tell me to have Sharia law in this country, so when you’re trying to change my culture I think that’s where the problem comes...and that’s when you get the tensions.

Participants here echo Goodhart’s description of ‘a new urban England…full of mysterious and unfamiliar worlds just around the corner’,[11]albeit with a greater emphasis on feelings oftension, insecurity and threat. George is intimidated by the alienness of an area of Birmingham; Norman invokes the spirit of Powell, suggesting that ‘no-go areas’ have emerged (presumably for white people),and Thomas fears the encroachment ofIslamic culture and law on Britain. For these participantsthe sense of shared nationhood and mutual trust that Miller argues should emerge through a process of absorption and integration of immigrants into national public culture is failing, withsome urban areas even being seen asborder zones engendering a sense of separation and unbelonging.

The sources of these attitudes

Taken together, the findings reviewed above thereforelend support to Goodhart’s liberal nationalist perspective on immigration in contemporary Britain. They suggest that perceptions ofimmigration and immigrants are contributing to an economically troubled andsocially divided society,thus undermining the trust and social bonds required for a functioning, potentially progressively minded national polity. However, the word perceptionsis key here, as the remainder of this section exploring the apparent sources of these attitudes will demonstrate. Each of the following excerpts is in response to the question of whether immigration affects the participant’s life.

Norman (60s): Not personally, no [pause]. No. Erm [pause]…it’s [i.e. immigration is] not down here.

Lloyd (40s): [long pause] I can’t think of one [an effect of immigration on his life] directly. I can’t think of [one] indirectly [pause].

Caroline (thirties): It doesn’t affect me or my life in any way whatsoever.

Stephen (60s): Affect my life? No I don’t think so really, not down here… I’m sure it would in some…other places…but I mean you look round here, there are very few [immigrants].

Thomas (60s): Fortunately in Gosport I think the ethnic population is something like 2 percent...so we don’t really have an immigration problem that much in Gosport, but I could imagine some other places, yeah it probably is a big issue.

Jamie (40s): In terms of the Gosport area, for me it’s not a major issue…If I lived in Birmingham I might [feel] slightly differently because…in some areas of Birmingham I might feel quite isolated…So in terms of direct impact [of immigration on her life] I’m aware of it… I watch the news most days, you know…I’m aware of the cultural tensions, but here on a day-to-day basis it’s not a major issue for me.

Nearly all participants saw their lives asunaffected by immigration, an absence of impactoften linkedto Gosport’srelatively low levels of immigration and ethnic diversity. As with George’s earlier excerpt,in which he described an area of Birmingham as ‘like downtown Karachi’, several participants ascribe the problems they associate with immigration and immigrants to city life. Stephen, Thomas and Jamie are ‘sure’ or ‘imagine’ that immigration—and/or the presence of ethnic minority individuals (the distinction is again blurred)—would affect them ‘in some other places’,namely cities, whereimmigration is ‘probably…a big issue’ and where one ‘might feel quite isolated’.The above excerpts thussuggest that the perceived effects of immigration and ethnic diversityanalysed earlier are partlybeing imagined rather than directly experienced.

These findings echo Scott Blinder’s recent analysis of anationally representativestudy in which it was found that ‘public opinion toward immigrants and immigration is directed toward pictures in our heads of immigrants rather than immigration per se and, further, that these mental representations of immigrants may help determine attitudes toward immigration policy’.[12]Blinder finds that thosewho are the most hostile to immigrationbelieve that thelargest amount ofimmigration stems from asylum claims,despite asylum seekerscontributing around 5 percent to annual net migration figures.[13] From the perspectiveof the present study, participantsseem to draw their attitudes to immigration from partly imagined experiences and effects taking place elsewhere and in relation to other people.

Many participants have of course spent time in cities. However,most of those who spoke of experiences involving ‘immigrants’, such as George in his caror another participant who witnessed ‘gypsy beggars’ on a London train, based their concerns and fears on fleeting, anecdotal episodes. Thispotential deficit in the representativeness of participants’experience as it feeds into their attitudes towards immigrants is, furthermore, linked to a potentially importantdeficitofrepresentativeknowledge, as most participants wereheavily reliant on secondary sources for the information that appears to influence theirviews. These sources includefamily and friends, such as the participant who discussed her daughter’s partner’s sister who is reported to havelost her place in a council housing queue to Polish migrants, andthe participant whodescribed her anger about what a friend told her about Muslim women wearing niqabs on their passport photographs.Personal sources such as these will be reliable to differing extents, with the former anecdote probably true and the latter informationcertainly not. By far the most notable secondary source feeding into attitudes towards immigration, however,was the media.