Post-Brexit hate crimes against Poles are an expression of long-standing prejudices and contestation over white identity in the UK

With migration as a central issue, the Brexit debate reinforced a climate of antagonism towards Poles and other Central-Eastern Europeans. But the expression of such attitudes with impunity has been a part of the political and media discourse long before the referendum. Dagmar Rita Myślińska writes that what appears to be a post-Brexit wave of hate crimes against Poles, in particular, has brought to the foreground the dangers of accepting prejudices and racism as a normalised part of discourse, while revealing some insights about the nature of white ethnic and national identity in the UK.