There has been a similar spike in talk of an immigrant \u201cinvasion\u201d, transmuting arrivals on small boats into a great heathen army. Posts mentioning a migrant invasion of the UK received 275 million views in 2023, 600 million in 2024 and 1.4 billion in 2025 to date.<\/p>\n
Much of this is unsurprisingly targeted at asylum seekers and irregular migration. The summer was marked by protests targeting hotels in Epping<\/a>, Canary Wharf and other parts of the country \u2013 a situation not helped by colossal unforced errors\u00a0including\u00a0the accidental release of an Ethiopian man\u00a0who sexually assaulted a woman and a girl.\u00a0<\/p>\n But anti-migrant actors are increasingly agnostic as to who they target so long as they\u2019re \u2018foreign\u2019 \u2013 even when they are elected\u00a0politicians, from groups not so long ago cynically deemed \u2018model minorities\u2019. In 2024, only one out of the top 10 responses to X posts celebrating Diwali by former prime minister Rishi Sunak and\u00a0shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel was negative. By 2025, eight out of 10 featured either anti-Indian schoolyard scatology or explicit claims that to celebrate a Hindu festival is evidence that a person is unassimilated.\u00a0<\/p>\n If Old Wykehamists are unchangeably alien, there is little hope for the rest of us.<\/p>\n Advertising helps fund Big Issue\u2019s mission to end poverty<\/p>\n The view that remigration is the way to \u2018save the West\u2019 is not restricted to the UK or Europe.\u00a0In October, the US Department of Homeland Security put a single word post, \u201cremigrate\u201d, on X, months after news that the State Department wanted to create an Office of Remigration. Diwali celebrations by FBI director Kash Patel received\u00a0even\u00a0more vicious\u00a0blowback\u00a0than Sunak or Patel. Anti-migrant actors lionise fellow travellers across borders, using their content to further create a world divided between white civilisation and a great, grey mass of barbarism, superstition and savagery.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n We also know that this hate is being monetised thanks to platforms that seem unwilling or incapable of imposing their own terms and conditions on hateful content. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) and The Bureau of Investigative Journalism<\/a> (TBIJ) recently identified a Sri Lankan network that pumped out thousands of anti-migrant posts on Facebook\u00a0targeting the UK<\/a>; TBIJ found a similar ecosystem run\u00a0from Nigeria<\/a>\u00a0last year. There are even more esoteric money-making schemes at play: cryptocurrency accounts created and promoted memecoins themed around anti-migrant protests. One such example used an AI-generated video of Elon Musk to\u00a0try and boost its value.\u00a0Whether mercenary motives or hate comes first can be hard to tell, but the incentive and the impact is clear.<\/p>\n In the 1970s, a National Front poster featured a nightmarish caricature of a Black face, dripping like ink down a Union Jack.\u00a0Even without the dire caption \u201cYour last chance\u2026\u201d, the messaging is hard to miss: non-white migration will destroy Britain.<\/p>\n Whether that sentiment entered abeyance or was just more politely masked is\u00a0difficult\u00a0to say. But it is clear that ethno-nationalism in Britain is more prominent than it has been in years. To counter it will take more than the \u2018easy\u2019 solution of policing and moderation, but a failure to engage with the issue risks a darker, diminished country.<\/p>\n Siddharth Venkataramakrishnan is an editorial manager and analyst at the\u00a0Institute for Strategic Dialogue<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this?\u00a0Get in touch and tell us more<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Advertising helps fund Big Issue\u2019s mission to end poverty<\/p>\n Reader-funded since 1991 \u2013 Big Issue brings you trustworthy journalism that drives real change.<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/article-CTA-Desktop-800x250-1.png\")
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