In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we explore the transformation of British society since Brexit – a story of the weaponisation of immigration, the erosion of the NHS, and the narrowing of who counts as "British."
Drawing on Liam Stanley's excellent book, Britain Alone, we examine how the anxieties that gave rise to the 2016 referendum have been magnified and entrenched in the years since. The referendum did not create the forces that produced it – it gave them permission to speak openly. Racist discourse, once hinted at, is now shouted. Social media has amplified far-right invective. And political parties – first UKIP, then the Brexit Party, then Reform – have seized upon anti-immigrant sentiment as their primary political offering.
We explore the devastating human consequences of the "hostile environment" – the set of policies introduced by Theresa May as Home Secretary to make the lives of migrants "miserable, costly and precarious." The Windrush scandal, in which thousands of people who had legally lived in the UK for decades were detained, deported, or stripped of their rights, is the most extreme example. Sylvester Marshall, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1973, was denied cancer treatment because he could not prove his immigration status – despite having lived and worked in Britain for 44 years.
The episode also examines the "nationalisation" of the NHS – not in terms of state ownership, but in terms of making the state more national in its regulation and distribution of resources. Eligibility for healthcare, housing, and other essentials of life has become based around nationality – and as defined by Britain's right, based around whiteness. The logic of these changes cannot be reduced to austerity alone; they are a political project of exclusion.
Topics covered:
- Brexit and the mainstreaming of racist discourse
- The Windrush scandal and the hostile environment
- The "nationalisation" of the NHS
- The politics of austerity and punishment
- Post-imperial Britishness and the racialisation of immigration
- The bipartisan embrace of anti-immigrant policies
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