Brexit support 'is strongly linked to fear of immigrants' claim researchers

Support for Brexit is strongly linked to a fear of immigrants, research has found – regardless of people’s gender, age or education level.

Researchers at Goldsmith found that British citizens who agreed that immigrants threaten their values and way of life were more likely to have voted for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union.

There are three groups that we can differentiate that are supportive of those sorts of views,” said Dr Agnieszka Golec de Zavala, a social psychologist at Goldsmiths.

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She says that the three groups are authoritarians, who believe immigrants will destroy the traditional status quo in Britain, ‘socially dominant’ people who compete for their group’s dominance over immigrants, and ‘collective narcissists’ who believe that Britain is simply better and entitled to privileged treatment.

The research also found that people who just thought it was great to be British or just valued their British identity were not more likely to reject immigrants or vote for Brexit.

Dr Golec de Zavala says, ‘From Brexit, Trump and support for Vladimir Putin in Russia to the nationalist, ultra- conservative government in Poland, studies from our and other labs show that collective narcissism systematically predicts prejudice, aggression and a tendency to interpret innocent behaviors as provocation to the national group.’