I believe the motive is more ethnonationalist than is admitted to in polite circles. "Culture" or "jobs" is the euphemistic front, but the true reasons are fear of crime/terrorism, and fear of becoming a racial minority and the consequences that will have on their voting power and racial supremacy.
Anti-immigration that comes from fear of crime is collective guilt and collective punishment. Only a small minority of individuals will be criminals, but the entire collective is punished all the same. Anti-immigration that comes from fear of racial diversity or fear of cultural change, is also a collectivist motive, it's a more nationalistic and nativist iteration of collectivism than fear of crime.
If the earnest reason is jobs protectionism, I'd still argue that protectionism isn't individualist. It's not explicitly collectivist, but it's a suppression of individual rights for cynical reasons. At least, it's anti-individualist, if not collectivist.
> I believe the motive is more ethnonationalist than is admitted to in polite circles. "Culture" or "jobs" is the euphemistic front, but the true reasons are fear of crime/terrorism, and fear of becoming a racial minority and the consequences that will have on their voting power and racial supremacy.
In the Brexit case, it was white Eastern Europeans coming in to UK and taking over low-paying jobs. So, neither a threat of terrorism nor racial supremacy (they're all white). I guess one could be afaid of some regions losing its inherent British culture though.
> In the Brexit case, it was white Eastern Europeans coming in to UK and taking over low-paying jobs.
Perhaps true in many people's minds, but it largely seems to be the case that native Brits do not want to do those jobs. Either Brits tend to see themselves as "above that", or there is a serious shortage of workers in those areas (structural problem). Therefore, such jobs were left undone or severely delayed. The UK got what it literally asked for and is now finding out that it didn't actually want that.
Brexit was a mish mash of motives. Some of those motives were explicitly collectivist, others were anti-individualist if not collectivist.
Brexit was partly fear of Muslims, not just job competition with Eastern Europeans. You see this in the discussion around Syrian refugees from people like Nigel Farage, Douglas Murray and Sargon of Akkad. They wanted to exit the system that enabled that. This particular motive was collectivist.
In addition, Brexit was partly the typical arrogance and wounded ego you see from declining and fallen empires. The glory days are still fresh in people's minds. There's a feeling that Britain is on the decline. People couldn't accept the egalitarian terms and low status of being just another ordinary EU member state. This also is collectivist through and through.
Anti-immigration that comes from fear of crime is collective guilt and collective punishment. Only a small minority of individuals will be criminals, but the entire collective is punished all the same. Anti-immigration that comes from fear of racial diversity or fear of cultural change, is also a collectivist motive, it's a more nationalistic and nativist iteration of collectivism than fear of crime.
If the earnest reason is jobs protectionism, I'd still argue that protectionism isn't individualist. It's not explicitly collectivist, but it's a suppression of individual rights for cynical reasons. At least, it's anti-individualist, if not collectivist.