Ethnic Minority Conservative Political Discourses and Policies on Immigration

The UK has recently seen an increase in ethnic minority representation in right-wing politics, alongside a surge in harmful, anti-immigration policies and discourses enacted by incumbent politicians who are often the children or grandchildren of racialised migrants. How can we understand the relationship between these two seemingly incongruous processes? This seminar brings together two papers that trace connections between race, representation and exclusionary systems of domination through explorations of ethnic minority conservative political discourses and policies on immigration.

Register for the event here.

Please note, due to demand the venue has changed to the Old Council Chamber, Wills Memorial Building.

Skinfolk, but not kinfolk? Paradoxical representation and post-racial gatekeeping among ethnic minority conservative political elite actors

Neema Begum, Michael Bankole, Shardia Briscoe-Palmer, Dan Godshaw and Rima Saini

The recent increase in ethnic minority representation in right-wing, conservative parties has been of note. However, whether this signifies substantive representation for ethnic minorities is challenged by ethnic minority politicians on the political right pushing for anti-immigration policies while denouncing anti-racism. Increasing ethnic minority representation is no guarantee of racial justice. Instead, we argue some minority politicians can act as ‘post-racial gatekeepers’ pushing ideology that race no longer shapes the lives of ethnic minorities today, thereby minimising the existence of racism. Focusing on UK immigration policy, we explain the government’s Illegal Migration Bill, as an example of ethnic minority politicians acting as ‘post-racial gatekeepers’. The Illegal Migration Bill has been criticised as amounting to a refugee ban and contravening the UK’s human rights obligations. Formulated by ethnic minority politicians, who are themselves children or grandchildren of immigrants, allows such immigration policies to appear ‘post-racial’ despite racialised minorities bearing the brunt. Assumptions that ethnic minorities in positions of power will advocate more strongly for ethnic minorities due to shared experiences is subverted by ethnic minority politicians as post-racial gatekeepers. Paradoxically working against rather than for marginalised ethnic minority groups, ethnic minority conservative political elite actors sustain, rather than disrupt, white supremacist systems of domination.

Constructing illegality: epistemic borderwork in the speeches of UK political elites

Natasha Carver and Holly Rooke

Political discourse on migration is fundamentally nation-building: its purpose is to separate ‘us’ from ‘them’, to prescribe who belongs and who does not. In this presentation, we unpick and analyse the ‘epistemic borderwork’ in eight speeches on migration policy given by the most powerful politicians in the UK between July 2021 and March 2023, a time of significant immigration legislative and policy reform, including the introduction and enactment of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and the Illegal Migration Act 2023, as well as the Rwanda Partnership and the Homes for Ukraine policies. All the speeches dehumanise migrant Others, constructing them as undeserving and exploitative, but three of the five speakers are people of colour and thus subject to racialisation and racism themselves which affects their discourse. We make visible and analyse the relationship between the state-imposed category of ‘illegal migrant’ and the embodied – racialised – characteristics of political leaders.