Words Matter
“Legitimate concerns”
Justifying anti-immigration sentiments as being ‘legitimate’ or ‘genuine’ happens across the political spectrum. It seems to be the ultimate caveat to a lot of political debates on migration and often is used interchangeably with the narrative of “it’s okay to be worried about migration.” A recent example is the mainstream coverage of far-right violence in the summer of 2024 which has been at times minimised as ‘protestors’ with “legitimate concerns about migration.”
But what is meant by a ‘legitimate concern’ about migration? What does being ‘worried about migration’ look like?
The language of ‘concern’ dilutes anti-migrant sentiments as something passive or acceptable, and devoid of racism. But it is in fact just thinly veiled racism. Migrants are being blamed for the Government’s austerity policies, amongst other claims that migrants are “stealing your job” or “invading your country”.
While some frame these as “legitimate concerns” of the“white [British] working class”, this is not reflective of the class makeup of the perpetrators of this racist violence, where these narratives are often spouted by those in power and mainstream media. We must be clear to not view racism as solely within the remit of the working class: wealthy politicians and powerful people are responsible for originally espousing this racist rhetoric, and normalising it on a national scale.
This language of “legitimate concerns” of the ‘average Brit’, using an imagined White working class figure, from politicians also allows them to distance themselves from the racist violence, despite the mobs using rhetoric and slogans of the current and former governments. They position racism (and racist violence) as grassroots/community-led, rather than originating from the top. For example, one of the chants from recent far-right mobs has been “stop the boats”, the slogan covering branding from the Government and the Conservative Party under Rishi Sunak.
Other current and former politicians have repeated misinformation and made pointed remarks in Parliament about the use of hotels to house people seeking asylum, like former Leicester South MP Jonathan Ashworth claiming that migrants coming to the UK to seek asylum stay in hotels for “the rest of their lives”, and Tamworth MP Sarah Edwards speaking just last week about how residents “want their hotel back”.
Ultimately, anti-migrant violence (both rhetorical and physical) and Islamophobia have been separated from racism. When these forms of oppression are not seen as racist, it allows them to become normalised. It means people can say they have “legitimate concerns about migration” with impunity and no fear of being called racist.
When you start ‘legitimising’ concerns about migration you are enabling racism and echoing the far-right.