“Like a Foreign Land:” Immigration Density and Reform UK Support in Post-Brexit England

Abstract

This thesis examines the relationship between immigrant density and Reform UK's vote share in the 2024 UK general election by testing whether Markaki's (2014) U-shaped findings persist. Using OLS regression across 521 constituencies, I analyze three immigration measures: the total foreign-born population, the non-EU foreign-born population, and the EU foreign-born population. Results show a linear negative relationship between all immigration measures and Reform UK support. Relative deprivation is the strongest predictor across all models. These findings indicate that Brexit restructured immigration politics in England: Reform UK's success reflects relative deprivation rather than reactions to local immigration. Immigrants serve as scapegoats for structural decline, not direct sources of threat. Three insights emerge: Markaki's U-shaped curves do not apply to post-Brexit voting behavior; relative deprivation predicts far-right support more strongly than immigrant density; and immigration attitudes must be distinguished from immigration-related voting behavior.