Immigrants: The Easy Target — A 2025 Reflection
by David Palethorpe
Immigration has always — and perhaps will always — provide an easy target for politicians all too willing to stoke fear in their pursuit of power.
The story is not new.
It has been repeated across decades and continents, and yet the pattern remains depressingly familiar: when politicians need a distraction from their own failings, they turn the spotlight onto those least able to defend themselves — immigrants.
We saw it in 2016 when Donald Trump built his entire presidential campaign on a foundation of anti-immigrant rhetoric — slogans and soundbites carefully designed to simplify complex social and economic challenges into a crude message: blame the outsider.
By 2020, the damage was plain to see — not just in the United States, but in how other nations were emboldened to follow the same path.
The United Kingdom was no exception.
Brexit was won, in part, through the deliberate amplification of fears about “open borders” and the free movement of people within Europe.
The narrative was simple: foreigners were taking jobs, suppressing wages, and straining public services.
It ignored the facts, but facts have never been the weapon of choice for populists or xenophobes.
It was a prime example of selective outrage by unscrupulous and dishonest politicians.
The difference between the UK and US approaches has always been one of style rather than substance.
In America, immigration crackdowns were often selective, conveniently aligning with political or business interests.
In Britain, suspicion has been cast more widely and indiscriminately.
Families who have lived here for decades find themselves at risk of deportation.
Students with their whole lives ahead of them are being denied the right to finish their education — all in the name of “taking back control.”
Nearly a decade later, the same tropes have re-emerged under new political banners.
Protests in Britain, often led by ReformUK and similar groups, have chosen their targets carefully.
It was easy to march against Trump and his proposed state visit; far harder, and far less common, to challenge the quiet, bureaucratic cruelty of our own government’s immigration policies.
It is always more comfortable to condemn the racism of others than to confront the prejudice in our own back yard.
Pointing the finger at immigrants for the UK’s problems is lazy, fear-driven politics — and it is deeply cynical.
Yes, population change brings pressures on services, housing, culture, and communities.
It always has.
But Britain, like the United States and so many other nations, has been built and strengthened by immigration.
The flow of people and ideas across borders has been the lifeblood of growth, creativity, and cultural richness.
To recognise this is not to say that immigration should be immune from debate.
Far from it.
Policy must always be open to scrutiny — but scrutiny must be honest, grounded in evidence, and motivated by fairness and compassion.
What we have too often seen instead is a willingness to exploit fear — to transform natural anxieties into political capital.
It is the politics of fear without evidence.
The problem is compounded by the lack of serious, empirical research that politicians are willing to cite or act upon.
The fears are always the same: immigrants will take our jobs, depress wages, raise rents, or erode culture.
Yet the evidence — when it is sought — usually proves the opposite: immigration fuels growth, expands the workforce, drives innovation, and contributes more in taxes than it takes out in services.
Such truths are inconvenient for those who thrive on division.
They don’t fit neatly on a campaign leaflet or a headline.
They require nuance, explanation, and courage — and nuance rarely wins elections.
Fear does.
So here we are in 2025, still circling the same debate.
In Britain, the legacy of Brexit continues to shape our discourse, with immigration still wielded as a convenient political weapon.
Across Europe, too, the rise of nationalist parties has seen the same scapegoating rhetoric return again and again.
The real question is: how do we change the focus?
How do we shift the conversation from targeting people to addressing policies?
How do we demand that our politicians confront the structural problems — inequality, housing shortages, and underfunded public services — rather than blaming those who have the least power to influence them?
If such a debate were ever held in good faith, we would find that immigration is not the burden it is so often portrayed to be.
It is, more often than not, a benefit — socially, culturally, and economically.
It is a source of renewal.
A nation that closes itself off to the world is a nation that withers.
That is why we must be wary and deeply suspicious of any politician who seeks easy popularity by targeting immigrants.
History shows us where that road leads.
I once believed the UK was better than that — that we had learned those lessons.
Recent history has made me less certain.
But one truth remains: when immigrants are made the easy target, it tells us far more about the prejudices of those who seek power than it does about the strength and humanity of those who arrive at our shores.
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