Workfare-oriented Welfare State and the Inclusion/Exclusion of Immigrants: The Background of the Rise of the Anti-immigration UKIP in Britain

Abstract

In Britain in the first half of the 2010s, support for the UK Independence Party (UKIP), an anti-EU immigration party, dramatically increased. Although a number of studies have been done to explain the party’s rise, less attention has been paid to the development of anti-EU immigration discourse among the British public. This article explains the shift from an inclusive discourse in the 2000s to an exclusive one in the 2010s by focusing on the welfare rights of EU immigrants and the compatibility of these rights with the contemporary workfare-oriented welfare state.