Migrant hysteria, the lie driving the rise of the far-right

T he far-right is on the rise, and it’s on the rise due to an artificial panic manufactured by rich and powerful interests in order to distract public attention from the greed and avarice of the wealthiest in society, a tiny segment which has hoarded ever greater wealth over the past few decades even as public services crumble under the stress of austerity, decent housing becomes unaffordable for millions, the cost of living soars, and daily life becomes ever more of a struggle for most.

Meanwhile, the super-rich jet about the globe in their private jets, pumping out more carbon in a single journey than the average family does in a year. No matter how much obscene wealth they have accumulated, it’s never enough. The super-rich fund an ecosystem of right-wing ‘think tanks’, pressure groups, media outlets and political donations, all aimed at subverting the democratic process in order to shape it to their liking. They have been wildly successful. Currently public discourse is dominated by the so called “migration crisis” while you will never hear any mention of the crisis of the greed of the super-rich.

But it’s not migrants who are responsible for the devastation of public services; that’s down to politicians in the pocket of the rich who push privatisation and tax cuts instead of taxing the rich and investing in the public sector. It’s not migrants who put affordable housing out of reach of an entire generation, it’s not migrants who are responsible for soaring utilities bills, and it’s not migrants who are to blame for job insecurity and the ever-increasing need for food banks in a wealthy country. All these things are the fault of the rich, who have deformed and bent the democratic process and traditional and social media into instruments of their will.

The current immigration hysteria is a creation of the right-wing media, which is owned and controlled by the super-rich in whose interests it operates. It’s a distraction technique, a means of scapegoating a vulnerable minority in order to protect those who are really responsible for the ills of modern society, the greedy billionaires. The current immigration crisis is a massive con perpetrated on the public by right-wing media outlets and politicians.

Naturally, politicians and the media will claim that migration is a major issue for the public, citing opinion polling which puts immigration amongst the issues of most concern to voters. Well. Duh, of course it is, the media never stops banging on about it. The media never discusses the economic, social, and cultural benefits of immigration; it never pushes back and points out that the number of people who cross the Channel in small boats is trivial in comparison to the number of refugees in much poorer countries. It never points out that these migrants could easily be absorbed if public services had not been devastated over decades in order to give tax cuts to the billionaire media barons who own the broadcasters and press. Of course it doesn’t.

Yet there is evidence that migrant panic is media-driven. A YouGov poll this week has found that only 26% of people said immigration and asylum was one of the three most important issues facing their community. This was half of the 52% who said it was one of the biggest issues facing the country as a whole. A report published by the Best For Britain campaign group shows that, while immigration comes second in the list of issues that people say matter nationally, it is only seventh in the list when people are asked about what matters in the places where they live.

People get their sense of what is nationally important from the media; they get their sense of what is locally important from the realities of their daily lives, which will in part be refracted through what the media tells them is nationally important. It is telling indeed that immigration does not figure strongly for most people as a local issue for them.

The far-right blames migrants for everything. They started by demonising “illegal” migrants, but have now moved on to attacking people who moved to the UK through legally approved routes, and have faithfully obeyed all laws and immigration rules in order to be granted Indefinite Leave to Remain in the UK (ILR). The Tories and Reform are now talking about stripping ILR from hundreds of thousands of people who have settled in the UK, are raising families here, are law-abiding, employed, and paying taxes.

Full disclosure. My husband is a US citizen who, in 2024, was granted Indefinite Leave to Remain in the UK following a long, expensive and intrusive process which took over five years and cost a total of over £15,000 in Home Office and immigration lawyer fees. At every stage, he was employed and paying UK taxes. Throughout this process, a condition of his visa was that he had no recourse to public funds, meaning he, like the great majority of immigrants to the UK, was prohibited from claiming benefits or accessing social housing. He also had to prove that he had not broken any laws.

Due to the current migrant hysteria, we have now paid an additional £2,755 to get him British citizenship and to give us peace of mind. We are immensely grateful to a good friend who has helped us to do this. While this gives us security, we are conscious that it’s not possible for everyone. Not everyone can afford the ruinous fees charged by the Home Office, which mount up if you have to make multiple applications for a spouse and children. The Home Office fee for citizenship is £1,735. We paid an additional £1,020 to an immigration lawyer. While you don’t need a lawyer and can tackle the complex paperwork yourself, if you make a mistake, you lose your Home Office fee and are back to square one. Not everyone is on a five-year route to ILR and citizenship like my husband; some are on a ten-year pathway, which could leave them vulnerable after the next Westminster general election due in 2029.

Others cannot apply for British citizenship as to do so means renouncing citizenship of their original country, which might not be feasible for family or other reasons. Thousands of people who are law-abiding and contributing members of society are now living in fear of the future, due to an entirely invented migrant panic and the deceit of British politicians and the press.

Farage and the Tories have now weaponised migrant panic in order to attack the European Convention on Human Rights. You can be quite certain that they are not doing this in order to improve the quality of life and living and working conditions of ordinary people.

It is, like migrant panic, all based on a lie. While a precise total is unavailable, statistics indicate that successful deportation appeals based on the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) are very rare. For instance, one report showed that between April 2016 and June 2021, human rights grounds were the reason for only about 2.5% of successful appeals against deportation for foreign national offenders in the UK. Another analysis of media coverage and academic reports indicates that fewer than 1% of cases in the UK have been won on human rights grounds, and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has only halted 13 deportations against the UK since 1980, according to the College Green Group. These cases have prevented the removal of a foreign national from the UK, on average, once every 4.5 years.

But in order to tackle this non-issue, Farage and the Tories propose to make a bonfire of the employment, civil, consumer, family and environmental rights of everyone in the UK. They want to do this in order to further enrich their wealthy backers and donors. Migrant panic is destroying lives, it’s destroying democracy, and it’s paving the way to the rise of the far-right. In Scotland, we have a chance to stop them in their tracks in May next year by voting for progressive pro-independence parties.

GOING FURTHER

• ‘Extra level of power’: billionaires who have bought up the media | THE GUARDIAN

• The TikTok deal puts even more media in the hands of the super-rich | THE GUARDIAN

• Poll suggests where immigration lies on people's lists of concerns | SKY NEWS

• Only 1 in 4 worried about immigration in their community | BEST FOR BRITAIN

• Reform plans to scrap indefinite leave to remain for migrants | BBC NEWS

• Tories deny copying Farage with European Convention on Human Rights plan | THE INDEPENDENT

• Reform’s ECHR plan: Big political stakes, limited effect on immigration | EUROPEANS TODAY

Sources:

▪ This piece was first published in Wee Ginger Dug and re-published in Europeans TODAY on 2 November 2025 under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. | The author writes in a personal capacity.

▪ Cover: Dreamstime/Korwen.