This research has challenged the conventional premise on the degeneration of sectarianism on Merseyside. The generally accepted proposition, expressed in the admittedly limited existing literature and commentary, that post-war slum clearance simply ‘bulldozed away’ the religious ‘ghettos’, ridding the city of sectarianism, was considered to be too simple an explanation for the corrosion of a social, religious, economic, xenophobic, tribal, and traditional dispute that had raged for nearly two centuries. This is not to say that the council's rehousing programme did not play its part. It did, and this study has never deviated from that point, whilst urging the consideration of variables to be less parsimonious. As Roy Hughes puts it, ‘Scotland Road and Netherfield Road [major sites of sectarianism] both arrived in Kirkby [along with many other areas of transfer]. Neighbours now, for the first time, were of another religion. People would meet in the street or at work and a Catholic and Protestant would fall in love. Resultantly, people said, “so and so has married a Catholic, keep the Orange songs down a bit”’. Moreover, in breaking up the old ‘Orange strongholds’, the Protestant Party could no longer rely on a micro-majority of supporters to keep them in office. It is probable, however, that this powerbase would not have survived regardless of rehousing.

The ‘new aliens’ hypothesis has also been examined in depth. It is true that as Liverpool sectarianism went into remission, racism directed against Liverpool's black and Chinese communities became more obvious. Racism had been a factor in Liverpool arguably longer than had sectarianism. Liverpool's black and Chinese communities had never reached that point where ‘assimilation means that the migrant community is absorbed totally into the host population, to the point in which it's indistinguishable’.

Liverpool's black and Chinese communities could not ‘assimilate’ as easily as the Irish, through a combination of physical characteristics, poverty, and even greater territorial isolation (in central and south Liverpool) than that originally encountered by the immigrant Irish. Thus ‘Scouseness’ for a long time did not envelop the black and Chinese communities as comprehensively as it could for those of Irish descent.