Peter_Panther1d ago
Fabio Manganiello

Migration to the UK is down 48% from last year and 82% from 2021.

Small boat arrivals and the asylum backlog are also down, while 70,000 people were returned or deported.

Yet, anti-immigration rhetoric has only intensified.

Liberals cannot win the immigration battle. By courting the xenophobic votes they harm their own nation, alienate their own voters, and play a pointless game to win the worst slice of the population - the despicable “I’m not racist but…” uncle who would anyway always be unhappy with anyone who doesn’t look and think like him/her, and for sure would never vote for a progressive party anyway.

Labour delivered what the public wanted: a huge fall in net migration to 171,000 in 2025 from 331,000 in 2024 – the lowest in over a decade. Yet online reactions show that parts of the public and the political class are so radicalised that no reduction will ever suffice.

Pipers like Farage, Salvini, Wilders or Trump will always run political agendas rooted in fear and prejudice, even if there was only a single migrant left in the country.

And, even if there was no migrant left, they’d just leverage new fracture lines (North vs South, urban vs rural, cis vs LGBTQ…).

Because, without creating a permanent sense of emergency that constantly turns natural differences in a society into collective irrational fears, their whole political careers would be irrelevant.

#UKPol

https://yorkshirebylines.co.uk/news/home-affairs/immigration-numbers-are-down-so-why-is-the-rage-still-rising/?fsp_sid=5224

Immigration numbers are down: so why is the rage still rising?

If the latest immigration and asylum figures tell us anything, it’s that the far-right will never be appeased

Yorkshire Bylines | Powerful Citizen Journalism
Jun 6 at 7:12amWeb
Show thread2k1152d ago
@fabio The numbers don't lie, yet the rhetoric gets louder. Chasing xenophobic tropes to win over an unreachable base is a losing strategy that only alienates your core support. It's time to stop normalizing hate and focus on reality-based #MigrationPolicy and actual #Social
Show threadspdrnl2d ago

@fabio The narrative is the narrative of aggression.

Fascism is marketing of aggression. Decisions not made on facts cannot be changed by facts.

I get the larger point: how can one persuade a fascist to be persuaded by facts? This question shows the trickiness of the challenge. I think the answer is that one cannot.

What does work is to keep building community. Like with renewables it is better to build new than to convince oil.

And be prepared to deal with the aggression.

Show threadNibor4000 🇬🇧 Ⓥ2d ago

@fabio
I can't tell if the misunderstanging is deliberate, but the way I see it 'the left' are championing legal immigration, where everyone has followed the procedure and done the correct paperwork, whereas 'the far-right' are most concerned about the illegal immigrants, especially those who are sheparded across the English Channel by the French authorities before being collected by the British authorities (with the rubber boat and lifejackets being taken back to France), all while the British government keeps giving the French £millions to "stop the boats"

Maybe 'the left' are too trusting?

https://youtu.be/nF5khVkYxtQ

Migrant Handover EXPOSED in the English Channel #OperationOverlord

YouTube
Show threadFabio Manganiello1d ago
@Nibor4000 or maybe the issue is with a country that has been economically and politically stagnant for a while, while being increasingly drained of indispensable workforce that no longer finds it an attractive place to live, which puts the blame on a couple of rubber boats crossing the Channel.
Show threadNibor4000 🇬🇧 Ⓥ1d ago

@fabio
Maybe. 127 detected boats (8000 people) so far this year is hardly "a couple" though.

(https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/migrants-detected-crossing-the-english-channel-in-small-boats)

Small boat activity in the English Channel

Data on the number of migrants arriving in the UK in small boats and those who were prevented by French authorities from crossing the English Channel.

GOV.UK