When Immigration Becomes a Scapegoat

Robert Jenrick’s defection from the Conservative Party to Reform is not just another Westminster reshuffle. It marks a further step in the normalisation of far-right ideology under the guise of being “centre-right”.

In his speech announcing the move, Jenrick returned again and again to a single theme: that Britain is “completely broken” - and that immigration is the primary cause. In the course of the speech, migrants and migration were framed negatively more than twenty times. Crime, social change, pressure on public services, loss of national control, even the safety of women and children were all laid at the feet of people who have come to this country from elsewhere.

This is not serious diagnosis. It is scapegoating.

Blaming immigration for everything that is wrong with Britain is a familiar political move. It is emotionally powerful, easy to communicate, and deeply misleading.

Housing shortages, an overstretched NHS, low wages, regional inequality, and fraying public trust did not begin with migration. They are the result of decades of political choices: underinvestment, deregulation, short-termism, and a failure to plan. To point at migrants and say “this is why Britain is broken” offers an easy target - and avoids accountability.

It also creates a dangerous moral shortcut: once a group is presented as the cause of national decline, they can be treated as less deserving of dignity, protection, or compassion.

Several of Jenrick’s claims rely not on proportion or evidence, but on selective examples designed to provoke fear.

Jenrick cited a horrific crime committed by an individual migrant - without context, without comparison, and without acknowledging that sexual violence in Britain is overwhelmingly perpetrated by men known to the victim, most often British-born. To single out one case and imply it represents migrants as a group is not about protecting women and girls; it is about stoking suspicion.

He suggested that terrorists have entered Britain via small boats, without evidence, while ignoring that the vast majority of terrorist attacks in the UK have been carried out by citizens or long-term residents, not newly arrived asylum seekers.

He spoke of communities becoming “unrecognisable” - language that invites listeners to hear difference itself as loss, and diversity as threat. Unrecognisable to whom? And by what standard? Britain has always been shaped by migration. Change is not evidence of decline.

Migrants are repeatedly portrayed as a burden - yet our daily lives tell a different story.

The NHS, social care, hospitality, agriculture, and transport systems are sustained by migrant labour. In many churches, including our own, young people in care, the elderly, and the vulnerable are supported day by day by carers and professionals who were not born in Britain. These are not abstract statistics. They are relationships of trust, compassion, and service.

That some migrants work in low-paid roles is not a moral failure on their part - it is evidence that they are doing work many others are unwilling or unable to do, often under difficult conditions.

Jenrick did not explicitly invoke Christianity in this speech. But his rhetoric belongs to the same ecosystem in which Christianity is increasingly treated as a marker of national identity rather than a faith rooted in love of neighbour.

When migration is framed as an invasion, when human rights are dismissed as obstacles, when entire communities are described as threats to “our” way of life, the ground is prepared for a distorted Christianity - one that blesses exclusion and calls it order.

Christians Against the Far Right exists because this drift matters.

Not every conservative is far-right. Not every concern about immigration is racist. But when fear replaces truth, when complexity is reduced to blame, and when whole groups of people are treated as problems to be removed, Christians are called to speak.

CAFR exists to:

• Publicly challenge the misuse of Christianity to legitimise nationalism, racism, and exclusion

• Equip Christians to respond thoughtfully and confidently to far-right narratives

• Share stories of welcome, contribution, and hope

• Build a broad coalition across denominations and political traditions committed to a gospel of dignity and love

We are not opposed to order, borders, or democratic debate. We are opposed to the politics of fear - especially when it dehumanises migrants and corrodes Christian witness.

Britain is not “broken” because of migrants. It is weakened when truth is replaced by scapegoating, and when compassion is dismissed as weakness.

Christians Against the Far Right will continue to say so - calmly, clearly, and together.

If you want to be part of this conversation, or help shape what CAFR becomes, we would love to hear from you.