Do Enfranchised Immigrants Affect Political Behaviour?

Abstract: This paper analyses 3 million UK Parliament speeches between 1972 and 2011 to understand how the migration flow of immigrants affect the incumbent’s behaviour towards existing and prospective immigrants. As a legacy of the British Empire, the immigrants from commonwealth countries in the UK have a right to vote in the national elections, while the non-commonwealth immigrants do not have this enfranchisement power. I find an increase in the share of enfranchised immigrants makes the incumbent spend more time in the Parliament talking about existing immigrants, address existing immigrants with positive emotion and vote to make future immigration tougher. An increase in disenfranchised immigrants leads to the opposite effect. The enfranchised immigrants undertake more socio-political actions (signing a petition, participating in protests, contacting a politician etc.) compared to disenfranchised immigrants, which drives the incumbent’s behaviour. Disenfranchised immigrants only catch up with the enfranchised immigrants after naturalisation.