New project: Colonialism and the anti-immigration campaigns of the British far-right

In January 2027 I will be starting a new 30 month project.

The 2025 asylum hotel protests across the UK showed that the far-right can mobilise active support via their online networks at short notice. This reflects work that far-right groups have been doing to harness discontent since Brexit, especially in communities where asylum-seeker hotels are based. Sociologists are increasingly interested in the growth in popularity of far-right ideas around the world, but often this interest explains recent events and ideas as emerging primarily from contemporary factors. This postcolonial historical sociology traces anti-immigration far-right ideas through histories of colonialism, and asks whether knowing these histories can help us better understand their popularity in the UK today.

This work is funded by the Leverhulme Trust.