It appeared that 2024 would be the year of anti-migrant hatred in the UK after the summer riots: unbridled misinformation that the Wales-born Southport killer arrived on a small boat, checkpoints where drivers were assessed on their skin colour, and mobs endeavouring to set fire to hotels housing asylum seekers.
But while the country evaded a recurrence of anti-migrant street brutality in 2025, the message that non-white people – ranging from recently arrived refugees to third-generation children – are unwelcome in the UK has only become louder.
It is not inherently racist to debate or disagree with immigration. But it is hard not to see a rising surge of explicit hatred emerging online – for which there is extensive data and which supports offline mobilisation.
The Institute for Strategic Dialogue has been monitoring the spread of this discourse by counting the number of individuals who see postings that contain newly developing anti-immigrant terminology.
Consider the increasing prevalence of the remigration debate in the United Kingdom. Regardless of their citizenship status or legal right to remain, the phrase refers to the widespread and usually forced expulsion of anybody of migrant origin—which almost often means non-white people—from Western nations. However, it has expanded from the continent to the core of anti-immigrant discourse in the UK, having previously been most closely linked to Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland.
In 2023, posts on X discussing remigration, which said the UK obtained a little more than one million views, before surging to nearly 55 million views in 2024. In 2025 to date, these posts have received a staggering 420 million views.
Many lauded demonstrations for remigration held in cities including Manchester, Birmingham and Nuneaton. Others sought to place mass deportations of non-white people as the ‘centrist’ option, implying that they should be grateful that they do not receive mass violence or executions instead.
There has been a similar spike in talk of an immigrant “invasion”, transmuting arrivals on small boats into a great infidelic army. Posts mentioning a migrant invasion of the UK obtained 275 million views in 2023, 600 million in 2024 and 1.4 billion in 2025 to date.
Much of this is unsurprisingly targeted at asylum seekers and irregular migration. The summer was marked by protests targeting hotels in Epping, Canary Wharf and other regions of the country – a situation not helped by colossal unforced errors, including the accidental release of an Ethiopian man who sexually assaulted a woman and a girl.
But anti-migrant actors are increasingly agnostic as to who they target so long as they’re ‘foreign’ – even when they are elected politicians, from groups not so long ago cynically deemed ‘model minorities’.
In 2024, only one out of the top 10 responses to X posts celebrating Diwali by former prime minister Rishi Sunak and shadow 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 proof that an individual is unassimilated.
Anti-migrant discourse that has targeted the UK has skyrocketed, and having a conversation about immigration isn’t automatically racist. Immigration is a political, economic and social issue, and we can agree or disagree with it because it affects our housing, wages, public services and cultural change, and none of that on its own makes someone racist.
A discussion about immigration isn’t automatically racist. Immigration is a political, economic, and social problem, and people can disagree about policy for numerous reasons—concerns about housing, wages, public services, border management, or cultural transformation. None of that, on its own, makes someone racist – you would have to cross the line and how the argument was articulated.
When debate remains in the realm of policy
- Concentrating on numbers, infrastructure, or economic impact
- Discussing integration, legal processes, or border systems
- Critiquing government decisions or political strategies
These are legitimate political arguments that occur in every democracy.
When it turns into racism
- Targeting people because of their ethnicity, nationality, or religion
- Using stereotypes or dehumanising language
- Treating immigrants as a monolithic “problem” rather than people
- Blaming entire groups for societal problems
The difference is in tone, intent, and the underlying beliefs.
The simple fact is that the UK is not a big country. It is small, and we cannot accommodate everyone. It’s as simple as that. There is no room at the Inn.
Also, if you want to come to another country, any country, you should immerse yourself in the culture of that country. Nobody is saying that they shouldn’t celebrate their culture, but just remember that they are here as guests, and not to take over our country wherever they see fit.
I am all for different cultures, but not when they infringe on my culture to the point where my culture does not exist anymore. Come over, but play by the rules; that is all we ask.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 