Ttbn: ".. enthusiasm for unrestricted immigration.."

Australian elites' enthusiasm for mass immigration is on another level. Consider this:

"Over the last eleven years Australia’s population growth, largely driven by immigration, has been running at record levels. For the 34 years from June 1972 to June 2006 growth averaged 210,200 per year; from June 2007 to June 2018 the annual average was 378,400.

In the earlier period net overseas migration (NOM) accounted for 42% of the increase, while in the recent period it has accounted for 59%. By 2017-18 the population was growing by 393,500 per year, with 67% due to NOM.

As the population has grown it has become more culturally diverse. At the 1976 census there were 10.8 million people living in Australia and 80% were Australian-born. Most of the rest (17%) had been born in the UK, Europe or New Zealand. In 2017 the total was 24.6 million with 71% Australian-born, 12% born in the UK, Europe or New Zealand, 14% in the Middle East, North Africa or Asia, and 3% in Other Africa or the Americas."

http://tapri.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Tapri-survey-2018-final-report-April.pdf

People are just getting fed up with working only to have their earnings halved by taxes which go to people who have no inclination to pull their weight in society other than doing their darnest to ruin it for all !
Then there are people who actually are allowed to make a career out of stating the bleeding obvious ! Again, from taxpayers' Dollars.

How many anthropologists picked the great financial crisis?

Leave the make believe fools in their ivory towers chattering away about their rubbish, & keep them off the street. They do less damage if isolated.

"However people tended to vote on cultural grounds. They were sick of foreigners (as they saw them) taking over the British way of life."

Yes, voters in the West are increasingly voting on cultural grounds. However, I don't think it's just a case of being "sick of foreigners."

As academics like Matthew Goodwin and Eric Kaufmann have recently argued, voters are unnerved and concerned about rapid demographic changes fuelled by unprecedented immigration. They are not opposed to new migrants but don't want their communities and country to become unrecognisable. They want a slower pace of change and are attached to their own group. Under multiculturalism, minorities are encouraged to practice group attachment but members of the old European-origin majority are condemned if they do the same. This is all bound to cause resentment.

Eric Kaufmann's book "Whiteshift" is a must read if you want to understand what's happening in the West at the moment.

Economists and anthropologist? Are those the only two options to push? Shady stock brokers and bankers playing with everyone else's money and getting rich regardless the outcome, versus professionals that study populations and more then likely are the cause of PC infused culture and rules? Between the two, I'd say that's a tough choice with no garentee of better results. Better would be something that gives a moral standing throughout society, to any class of people. That way both the anthropologist won't be as used as a tool to manipulate people, nor economists as often robing their neighbors and finding tax loopholes for the rich. That third solution? More churches! Even with their scandals, who would you trust more? Academic white collar professionals who have no knowledge of everyday people but are the "experts?" Or ministers and pastors that see more the scope of the different classes of society and can offer all of them a better moral compass?

Are there any other options besides academic showmanship in politics? More police, more military, more bakers and cooks? No matter what other options you have, religion is the only one outside of law enforcement professionals that covers the most ground on meeting society where it is and builds them up to do better then they did before. And of the religions out there Christian churches are the best at being there for each community they are in and looking out for them.

Hasbeen: "How many anthropologists picked the great financial crisis?"

I reckon they couldn't have done any worse than all the economists and financial experts.

Personally, I would argue that many anthropologists are far-left neo-Marxists with little to offer the real world. But I do agree with the author's point that cultural and social issues matter and need to be considered.