Interrogating the “economic migrant” in British political discourse: race, class, the economy and the human

Over the past 30 years, the label “economic migrant” has become widely used in British political discourse. Yet it has not been subject to sustained scrutiny. Those that have considered how it is used have predominantly focused on its relationship to asylum. In this paper, I build on such work by examining some of the core ways the “economic migrant” is conceptualized in British political discourse. Based on an analysis of Hansard data and select British newspapers between 1983 and 2021, this article establishes three common formulations of the label. Then, drawing on work related to Man, race, class and the economy, it argues that in different ways–in part, depending on different policy contexts–these usages produce distinct class-based forms of racialization that are grounded in ideas of economic otherness. The “economic” in “economic migrant” plays a central to justifying inclusion and exclusion on classed, racialized terms.