I can account for that, if you're able to stomach hearing about it.
I lived in the UK for a while. There isn't a generalized rise in xenophobia beyond the norm, it is highly specific.
There is no serious xenophobia towards Sikh, Hindu populations. The same goes for the blacks, the Russians, the Polish. 99% of all animus is directed at Muslims. The strongest openly expressed dislike is from other immigrants. Blacks and Hindus especially, they openly loathe them.
The honest truth is that British Muslims are... well, let me explain by painting a picture. In my university halls they would regularly watch videos of women being stoned to death in the rec room. I think that was the most bizarre thing I'd ever seen in my life. I am also confident that a huge number of them are funding terrorist organizations because they just do their fund raising in the streets and campuses. In my neighborhood a guy from it sliced off a woman's head in a different English city. Some first generation Muslims I know from Pakistan had to leave British Muslim neighborhoods because they found it too intolerant and extreme. These are some of the mildest things that could be said.
What you should really be worried about is the kind of people who use the phrase 'Little Englanders'. This class of white people is uniformly seen as primarily responsible by the working class for the observations I just mentioned. I think that is the primary fault line right now.
For those who take umbridge, consider that I haven't passed a value judgment on an entire category of people. It sounds BAD because sometimes it IS bad.
> The fact is that economic inequality in the UK has been rising for a long time. I would argue that is the root cause. People don't generally gravitate to demagoguery and scapegoating unless they are already having a bad time economically.
In my view it is not so much as that a rich - poor gap as stagnant wages. If you subtract property values and the rise in price of rival goods such as education then I think you'll find almost everybody has stagnant income. Inflated asset prices cannot be realized into cash without crashing and that distorts the truth which is that Western economies have been stalled for some time now. Notice how a drop in oil prices has not led to an exciting economic rebound for all. It's what we don't see that counts!
I also believe if lots of new niches in society were opening up (often associated with GDP rise) it would help. I think people shorn of purpose are much more likely to become violent. It's an evolutionary principal at work, if you can't find a niche, you could displace somebody from theirs. I don't think exclaiming 'racist' at a rather elemental survival strategy works out very well when those same people are 'classist', because it just redirects people's wrath to their nearest competitors. I see the same thing in America with Donald Trump vs Muslims as I do here. Racism is being used as a proxy for classism and class conflict which is a much bigger systemic problem than a specific minority conflict because it involves the whole of society. Seen this way, scapegoating is a real and rational policy for all factions to use. I don't know how you solve that without creating a bigger mess but suspect René Girard might know.
It is probable that in the past external enemies are used to alleviate internal tensions but that doesn't work very well in a age of nuclear weapons, which suggests that WMDs could lead in game theory to a higher probably for internal civil conflict. I expect this is well trod ground by strategists but this already sounds depressing.
I agree that if your circumstances are improving it alleviates the kind of tensions I mentioned. However the issue with Islam is an extraordinary one that would cause tension under any circumstances. The same things are going on in France but at a higher pitch. I reiterate that there isn't a generalized rise in xenophobia. There is a rise in xenophobia directed at Muslims and then connected class warfare between the working and middle classes.