The UK Supreme Court verdict on the Rwanda policy increased individual support for racial and ethnic hierarchies: evidence from a natural experiment

How do court decisions on controversial immigration policies affect support for hierarchies between groups? In this article I analyse the UK Supreme Court’s ruling on the Rwanda asylum plan and how it affects people’s support for racial hierarchies. Utilising the unexpected event during survey design I show that the Supreme Court’s ruling on the illegality of the Rwanda asylum plan increased support for racial and ethnic hierarchies among the British public. The effect is primarily driven by White Britons. Path modelling indicates that the ruling indirectly increased prejudice against immigrants ant anti-immigrant party voting intentions. The results suggest that declaring the Rwanda plan unconstitutional threatened the British public and made them more in favour of hierarchies between groups -- leading to electoral gains for anti-immigrant parties. They have implications for our study of politcal values and the electoral consequences of value change.