White Flight and White
Nationalism in the UK
Is there a Connection?
Eric Kaufmann and Gareth Harris,
Birkbeck College
e.kaufmann@bbk.ac.uk; g.harris1@bbk.ac.uk
Community and Closure
• 'The distinctiveness of cultures and groups
depends upon closure and, without it, cannot
be conceived as a stable feature of human life.
If this distinctiveness is a value, as most
people…seem to believe, then closure must be
permitted somewhere.' – Michael Walzer,
Spheres of Justice (1983)
Exit, Voice, Accommodation
• Voice = White opposition
to immigration and/or Far
Right voting (Closure 1)
• Exit = ‘White Flight’ or
Avoidance (Closure 2)
• Accommodation = White
acceptance of diversity,
immigration,
• How are exit, voice,
accommodation related?
Conceptual Frameworks
•Dominant
Ethnicity
•Political
Demography
•Ethnic Status
Data and Methods
• Methods: Quantitative and Qualitative
• Quantitative First, then qual, then back to
quant
• Today mainly on quantitative findings to date
• Sources: ESRC datasets: BHPS, Understanding
Society, Citizenship Survey. Also ONS LS
ONS Longitudinal Study
• The permission of the Office for National Statistics to use
the Longitudinal Study is gratefully acknowledged, as is the
help provided by staff of the Centre for Longitudinal Study
Information & User Support (CeLSIUS). CeLSIUS is
supported by the ESRC Census of Population Programme
(Award Ref: RES-348-25-0004). The authors alone are
responsible for the interpretation of the data.
Census output is Crown copyright and is reproduced with
the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's
Printer for Scotland.
Exit
10
USA, 1970-2000
0
5
Source: Andersson,
Hammarstedt, Neuman 2012
0
20
40
60
Share of Minorities in 1970
80
100
Source: data from Card, Mas &
Rothstein 2008
‘White Flight’ in England?
•A number of leading geographers
(Catney and Simpson 2010; Finney
and Simpson 2007; Simon 2009)
suggest that both whites and
minorities leave dense, poor areas
for leafier more attractive places
•But even they do not deny that
ethnic preference plays some role
•Flight v Avoidance
Counterurbanisation Method
Wards
Quintile
1
Quintile
2
Quintile
3
Quintile
4
Quintile
5
Total
%
White
7554
98
726
87
288
73
180
57
102
8850
34
91
Simpson (2007) argues that both whites and
nonwhites are leaving poor urban areas at
similar rates. ‘Counterurbanisation’ thesis.
Yet even here, there is evidence of some
ethnic difference.
Moved Out of Ward
in 2000-2001:
Wards
% White
Wh British Minorities WH Other White Irish
Quintile 1
7554
98
1.1%
4.7%
3.2%
1.5%
Quintile 2
726
87
5.4%
6.4%
7.7%
4.1%
Quintile 3
288
73
6.8%
6.0%
8.1%
5.6%
Quintile 4
180
57
7.0%
4.6%
7.8%
3.8%
Quintile 5
102
34
6.1%
2.9%
13.1%
3.2%
8850
91
Total
Source: Office for National Statistics. 2001. ONS Longitudinal Study.
Predictors of Quintile Shift, 1991-2001 (excluding area controls for ethnicity,
density, poverty)
Source: Office for National
ONS Longitudinal Study.
-100
White British ethnicity
White working class
Unskilled
Partly unskilled
Social Housing
Mixed ethnicity household
Skilled nonmanual
3+ child
Class: Managerial and Technical
Married
Children: 1 child
GCSE
Skilled manual
Other
Remarried
Divorced
Armed Forces
Not Applicable
O level
Widowed
2 child
A level
Degree
Separated
Age: 10-19
Statistics. 2001.
30-39
60-69
over 70
50-59
40-49
-80
-60
-40 Coefficient
-20
0
20
40
Voice: Opposition to immigration
• Citizenship survey 2006 to 2011
• Do you think the number of immigrants
coming to Britain nowadays should be
reduced
• Majority view, about 80% since 2005 among
white UK-born population
Bringing White Flight and Immigration
Views Together
• Puzzle: Why are whites (and even white
working-class British) people living in diverse
wards more tolerant of immigration?
Reduce the number of immigrants by social class
and ward diversity for all white respondents
95
90
85
80
75
70
Upper
Middle
65
Working class
All
60
55
50
Threat or Contact?
• Whites – even the white working class – living in
diverse wards are more tolerant of immigration
• US literature shows that diversity at ward/tract
level (10-30k) is associated with less white
hostility to immigrants, minorities, immigration
• BUT at metro/county/LA level (100k-1m), more
diversity is associated with more white hostility
• Feeling of threat at metro level as minorities
grow, but positive contact at local level creates
accommodation?
Other Explanations..
• Contact or Threat is the usual framework
• But other explanations:
1) Selection bias: whites who don’t like diversity
leave
2) not diversity of context, but something about the
white population in diverse areas that creates a
different context. Young, educated, transient. Here
we focus on transience.
Selection Bias?
• No one has properly tested
• Test with BHPS/Understanding Society
• Compare those who enter and leave diverse
wards
• Compare movers (enter/leave) with those
who stay
Same
White stayer
Less
More
119316
1596
1468
122380
90.7%
White inter-ward mover
6774
1670
1421
9865
7.3%
White intra-ward mover
2565
38
37
2640
2.0%
White Movers to more or less diverse wards as % of movers
Moved to less diverse
Class
Party Vote
Tabloid/Broadsheet
English Identifier
17-25
26-35
36-45
46-54
55-64
65+
owner
social
rented
degree & above
A-level
O- level
none
no child
1 child
2 child
3 or more child
total child
couple
single
Source: BHPS/
Understanding Society,
1991-2011
Total
Moved to more diverse
All Movers
n/s
n/s
n/s
n/s
32.4
34.2
14.2
6.7
5.6
5.9
61.3
12.4
26.3
30
31.1
23.7
15.1
74.4
12.6
9.9
3.1
25.6
64.9
35
44.2
31.2
11.7
4.8
3.3
4.2
39.7
10.5
49.8
26.7
38.7
24.4
10.2
82
9.4
6
2.5
16.9
5.7
49.1
37.8
32.8
13
5.8
4.5
5***
51.5
11.5
37***
28.5
34.6
24
12.9***
78
11.1
8
2.8
21.7***
58.4
41.5***
Not Selection: Those who ‘exit’ do not
‘voice’
• BHPS and Understanding Society
• Whites moving to diverse areas and those
leaving them are identical when it comes to
voting, family values, English national identity,
British patriotism, newspaper readership
• No measure of immigration opinion, but
research in Sweden identical conclusion
Managers
Stayer Mover
Total
19.9
21.1
Stayer
Mover
Total
20
Intermediate
Own acc
42.8
5.8
45.6
4.7
43
5.7
working class
29.4
26.2
29.1
never worked
2
2.2
2.1 ***
17-25
26-35
36-45
46-54
55-64
65+
8.4
16.2
19.8
16.5
15.3
22.4
29.3
31.7
16.1
8.6
6.3
7
10.4
17.7
19.4
15.8
14.5
21 ***
Con
Labour
Liberal
Other
none
28.8
40
13.9
4.7
12.6
25.2
38
14.4
5.2
17.1
28.5
39.8
14
4.7
13 ***
redtop
67
63.4
66.8
broadsheet
26.9
31.9
27.9 ***
owner
social
rented
79.6
15
5.3
54.6
15.9
29.5
77.3
15.2
7.5 ***
degree & above
A-level
O- level
none
10.9
23.2
31.3
34.6
18
30.6
33
18.3
11.6
23.8
31.4
33 ***
Not Religious
Religious
52.9
47
66.6
33.4
54.2
45.8 ***
Homosexuality wrong
agree
neither
disagree
21.5
36.8
41.7
13.8
29.5
56.8
20.8
36.2
43 ***
Husband should earn
agree
disagree
18.9
52.8
12.2
64.7
18.3
54 ***
16
52
7.7
73.8
15.2
30.8 ***
74.8
17
8
65.4
22.8
11.7
74
17.6
8.4 ***
Britain has much to learn from
other countries
agree
45.2
neither
31.7
disagree
23.1
45.6
34.3
20.1
45.2
32
22.8 **
Cohabitation wrong
Agree
disagree
Brit Citizenship is Best
agree
neither
disagree
Source: BHPS/ Understanding Society, 19912011
Stayers and far right support
• Harris’ work on support for the
far right in Greater London
2007-10: electoral support for
the BNP stronger in wards with
less in- and – outflow
• Far right support linked with
white enclaves nested within
more ethnically diverse areas
(Goodwin 2011, Bowyer 2008)
• Positive relationship at Local
Authority (threat) against
negative at ward level (contact)
Two caveats
• Far Right support not linked to ethnic diversity
per se but rate of ethnic change on a low
base, ie Barking & Dagenham (see also
Newman 2013 for US anti-immigration
sentiment)
• Higher levels of far right support found in
areas with a higher proportion of Pakistani
and Bangladeshi residents, rather than Black
Caribbeans, who are more established
Reduce the number of immigrants by social class
and ward diversity for all white respondents
95
90
85
80
75
70
Upper
Middle
65
Working class
All
60
55
50
% Minorities Softens Views on
Immigration
Source: Home Office Citizenship Surveys, 2006-11
…Adding Mobility & Contextuals
Focusing on Working Class
Conclusion
• Local ethnic geography and demography matter for
national issue perceptions and vice-versa
• Little white flight, but lots of white avoidance
• Anti-immigration and far right vote (closure 1) not linked to
white flight/avoidance (closure 2)
• But white working class are more likely to be both ‘white
flighters’ and white nationalists
• Some support for contact theory but much of the positive
effect of diversity is due to other aspects of diverse areas
(transient, urban). No effect on white working class
• White attitudes to immigration may be softened by
contact; or may be hardened by white consolidation and by
jumps in minority presence in formerly lily-white areas