Sir Roger Jowell Memorial Lecture 2023

Are attitudes to immigration changing and does this matter?

Immigration has been one of the defining political issues of recent decades. It raises fundamental questions: Who should be allowed to settle and on what terms? Is immigration an opportunity or a threat? How does the movement of millions across borders change our society and how should we manage the effects of this?

These are questions which deeply divide citizens and can reshape politics. But views on immigration are not fixed - they shift in response to both long run changes in the demographic landscape and shorter run shifts in the political conversation.

The long running social surveys which Roger Jowell played a central role in establishing and running - the British Social Attitudes survey, the British Election Study and the European Social Survey - are a vital tool for understanding the changes in attitudes to central issues like immigration and the deep forces shaping these changes.

In this lecture, extensive use of these resources was made to explore three sets of questions, with a focus mostly (though not only) on Britain. Firstly, the lecture examined how attitudes towards immigration had changed over the very long run and what accounted for this change. Immigration and the debates it provoked had been part of British political and social life for generations. The lecture compared the landscape of opinion at that time with that of fifty or sixty years ago, during the first wave of post-war mass migration to Britain. It also considered what drove changes in immigration attitudes from one generation to the next and what the consequences of those slow but relentless shifts were.

Secondly, the lecture examined how attitudes towards immigration had changed in the shorter run, from one election to the next, as governments and policies changed. It explored the role that immigration had played in the political dramas of the past decade - the rise of UKIP, the EU referendum and the tumultuous post-Brexit elections. The lecture also examined the role that political parties had had on how immigration was seen, as successive governments reworked Britain's relations with its neighbours and the policies governing who migrated there and on what terms.

Thirdly, the lecture considered the landscape of immigration attitudes at that time and what this might mean for the next general election and beyond. It examined why the Conservatives were focusing so much energy on a campaign to 'Stop the boats' and what political effects this campaign and immigration attitude more broadly might have on the election expected in 2024. The lecture also explored how attitudes towards immigration might continue to change in years to come and what the implications might be for British society and politics.