Hate at first sight? Dynamic aspects of the electoral impact of immigrants: the case of Brexit and UK

Recent studies provide evidence that immigration has a significant positive effect on the vote for parties with anti-immigration agendas. However, this result does not emerge if we apply the same empirical analysis to the UK, whether in the case of Brexit, or if we consider support for Ukip or the political intentions expressed in the BES survey. To account for this and other fragmented evidence in the literature on personal attitudes towards immigration, we formulate the hypothesis that the increase in anti-immigration views resulting from an increased number of immigrants in a neighbourhood is a temporary effect. Different underlying mechanisms may be at the root of such negative short-run effects, such as material concerns about the adjustment cost of new migration flows, or prejudicial attitudes, both denoting a “hate at first sight” effect. We build an econometric strategy to test for the existence of such a short-run effect in the case of Brexit and then assess the robustness of our result using a panel of the vote for Ukip and individual data from the BES survey. The evidence robustly supports our hypothesis and provides a basis for further analysis.