Emotalizer: UK Refugee Quotas

“The notion of another 20,000 refugees provokes a largely negative response from the British public”

During 2015, propelled by ongoing conflicts, over one million migrants and refugees crossed into Europe from North Africa and the Middle East. Amid great controversy, the UK has opted out of any EU refugee quota plans, though David Cameron has promised to accept 20,000 refugees over the next five years.

To measure people’s reaction to accepting refugees into the UK, we asked respondents the main emotion they would feel if the UK were to accept an additional 20,000. Using our proprietary approach to emotion classification (e.g. ‘joy’ and ‘jolly’ are both classed as ‘happy’, see here for more details) we report in the table the main categories of emotion expressed.

First, there is little sympathy for the refugees. For example, 18% of people would be ‘annoyed’ and only 6% would be ‘happy’. In total, negative outnumbered positive emotions by three to one.

Second, this topic is highly emotive and polarising. Compared to other issues we’ve tested few people (11%) felt ‘nothing’. Similarly, this was the first topic we’ve studied where ‘scared’ and ‘proud’ have made the top ten.

Third, responses are strongly influenced by demographics. Specifically, people of different ethnicities were much more empathetic and willing to accept refugees. However, even in this case, the majority of non-Brits were still against the proposal.

As an island largely populated by Anglo-Saxon and Breton immigrants no-one in the study mentioned ‘irony’ though some were at least ‘confused’.