The Return of ‘Blood and Soil’ Nationalism

The right is adopting an increasingly extreme form of ethnic identity politics while failing to explain what the rest of us are supposed to be worried about, argues Jonathan Portes

“With the Conservatives, there are no blacks, no whites, just people” stated a 1983 Tory campaign advert. It is hard to imagine Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick repeating those words. In May, he complained that “the white British population has reduced by 50%” in 25 years in parts of Dagenham and “understandably, some people who live there will feel the place that they knew no longer exists”.

Jenrick’s radicalisation reflects a wider swing among some right-wing politicians, commentators, and think tankers away from objecting to immigration on (often flimsy or spurious, but not self-evidently irrational) economic grounds and towards straightforward ‘blood and soil’ nationalism.

Rather than analysing the economic or social impacts of immigration, the new focus is on demographics – particularly on the shrinking share of the ‘indigenous’ white British population, often described as the ‘traditional majority’.