Μake us preferred on Google In September 2025, more than 100,000 people marched through central London in an anti-immigration demonstration organised by activist Tommy Robinson, according to Reuters. Protesters were carrying English and British flags in one of the largest right-wing demonstrations in recent British history. Around the same time, videos circulated on social media, including footage appearing to show protesters buying Indian onion bhajis and another showing people singing “We Are the Champions” by Farrokh Bulsara, widely known as Freddie Mercury. The first video remains unverified, while the second requires context before any conclusions can be drawn about the protesters’ attitudes.
Enjoying foreign food or singing a song by an artist with an immigrant background necessarily contradicts opposition to immigration. It raises though, a more interesting question. How can people embrace elements of immigration while supporting political narratives that portray immigration as a threat?
The answer lies in the distinction between accepting immigrants as individuals and accepting immigration as a social phenomenon. Someone may welcome a neighbour, colleague or family member from another country while remaining suspicious of immigration more broadly. Under these circumstances, acceptance can depend less on a person’s background than on they are perceived familiar, successful, culturally similar or personally valued.
In his book “How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them” Jason Stanley, examines how fascist politics constructs boundaries between “us” and “them”. These boundaries can persist even when personal relationships complicate them. People oppose immigration while praising their Moroccan neighbour, Syrian plumber or Turkish spouse. Their affection may be entirely genuine, but it does not necessarily challenge their wider assumptions about immigrants, who they might scapegoat, while overlooking the immigrant next to them. The individual becomes an exception to a negative perception of the group.
This is the paradox of conditional belonging. Some people are accepted not simply as they are, but because they are seen as different from other immigrants. Their perceived usefulness, assimilation, social status or personal connections can influence whether they are regarded as deserving of acceptance.
Class also shapes these judgements. A minimum-wage retail worker might be perceived differently from a highly qualified professional or a foreign supervisor. Such distinctions are not necessarily about nationality alone; they may also reflect assumptions about competence, economic contribution and social worth. The immigrant who occupies a position of authority or prestige may be treated with greater respect than someone doing low-paid work, even when both face the same underlying question of belonging.
My own professional experience in retail has challenged some of the assumptions behind these distinctions. I have worked alongside two PhD holders from Iran, specialising in medicine and water management, and a Supreme Court lawyer from Brazil. Their qualifications challenge stereotypes that reduce migrants to narrow categories of low-skilled labour. Yet professional achievement should not be a prerequisite for acceptance. Human dignity does not depend on economic productivity, academic qualifications or the benefits someone brings to their host country.
Research on European attitudes towards immigration also cautions against treating public opinion as a simple division between supporters and opponents. In What Europeans Think About Immigration and Why It Matters (2026), James Dennison and Andrew Geddes examine how political narratives, identities, values and other factors shape attitudes towards immigration. People may support certain forms of immigration while opposing others, depending on the circumstances and the groups involved. The issue, therefore, is not whether every restrictive immigration position is hypocritical. It is how people decide which immigrants are welcome, which are considered threatening, and what assumptions underpin those judgements.
Greece offers a particularly revealing example through Giannis Antetokounmpo. Born and raised in Athens to Nigerian parents, he did not obtain Greek citizenship until 2013, shortly before being drafted into the NBA. Today, he represents Greece internationally and has become a source of national pride. His story raises an uncomfortable question: would his belonging be celebrated as readily if he had not become an exceptional basketball player?
This is not to suggest that all Greeks share the same attitudes towards him. Rather, his story invites us to consider the relationship between achievement and recognition. Extraordinary success can make a person’s connection to a nation easier to celebrate, but what about immigrants whose contributions are less visible, whose achievements attract little recognition, or who are never given the opportunity to demonstrate their potential? If exceptional talent helps someone cross the boundary between outsider and insider, the question is whether that boundary is equally accessible to everyone else.
The same distinction matters when evaluating politicians and individuals who hold restrictive views on immigration while maintaining close relationships with people from immigrant backgrounds. Personal relationships and political convictions can coexist. What deserves scrutiny is whether the principles applied to immigrants in public debate are consistent, or whether exceptions are made for those who are familiar, successful or personally connected.
Perhaps, then, the contradiction is not that people who oppose immigration enjoy foreign food, admire immigrant athletes or love someone from another country. It is that they can recognise an individual’s humanity without extending the same recognition to the wider group to which that person belongs.
An immigrant may become “one of us” through talent, success, or personal relationships. But if some people must prove their worth to earn a place in the national community while others are accepted without question, the issue is not simply immigration. It is the unequal understanding of under which conditions belonging is granted, the question “who gets to belong to the national community, and why?
Valasis Simitsis is an ΟΔΕΘ-odeth.eu Executive Board Member
