‘We are, by nature, a tolerant people’: Securitisation and counter-securitisation in UK migration politics

Abstract

The ‘securitisation’ of migration is argued to rest on a process of framing migrants as a threat to key values, principally identity. Yet, the socially constructed nature of ‘identity’ implies the potential for dual usage: support and contestation of the security frame. Using the UK as an illustrative case, this overlooked dynamic is explored through mixed-methods, incorporating elite political and religious discourse (2005–2015) and original public attitudinal survey evidence. The discourse analysis reveals that the preservation of an imperilled British identity (‘tolerance’) is a frame invoked, in different ways and by different actors, to either support or contest the securitisation of migration. Similarly, British citizens who deeply value the preservation of ‘Britishness’ have diverse, positive and negative views on migration, challenging the notion that identity as a referent object is deterministically linked to anti-immigration attitudes. The innovative concept of ‘counter-securitisation’ is utilised and developed, unpicking these nuances and their implications.