The ongoing refugee crisis has stoked a lot of anti-immigration sentiment across Europe and populist political groups have capitalized on this.
For example in Britain, the UK Independent Party (UKIP), along with other politicians who wanted to leave the EU, were able to persuade many voters that immigration numbers would increase if Britain stayed in the EU.
37% of Britons say immigration has meant that where they live doesn't feel like home any more https://t.co/jp9RDGatWM pic.twitter.com/T0xXQDv6f8
— YouGov (@YouGov) December 5, 2016
Of the 12 European nations that have been surveyed, Europeans were asked if they agreed with a series of positive and negative statements, one of which was:
"There are so many foreigners living round here, it doesn't feel like home any more."
As a result of the anti-immigration rhetoric, in Italy 52 percent agree with the statement, making them the nationality most likely to do so. French and German people are also highly likely to agree with this statement, at 47 percent and 44 percent respectively. In Britain, 37 percent of people agree with the statement.
Agreement with this statement was one of the strongest correlations for whether or not a person holds authoritarian populist views.
In Italy, for instance, as many as 70 percent of people who hold AP views agreed with the statement. This figure was only surpassed in Germany, 76 percent of people who hold AP views agree with this view.
Joe Twyman, YouGov's Head of Political and Social Research and one of the authors of the Authoritarian Populist study, said that this latest data demonstrates what people really think and shows their opinions in much more strong way.
"Building on YouGov's previous research, this data shows clearly how the perceptions individuals have of immigration correlate strongly with whether or not they can be classified, by our measure, as Authoritarian Populists. The recent report into segregation and social exclusion by Dame Louise Casey highlights how such considerations can have an important impact for Britain. These results show the same could to be true for many other countries in Europe."
