UK Riots: Racism And Islamophobia Meets Community Unity – OpEd

The legacy left by the Conservatives after 14 years in government is not just economic stagnation, and the destruction of public services, it is social division, far right extremism and anger.

Violence, racism and hate are the common language of far-right groups/individuals the world over, all of which has been writ large on the streets of some towns in the UK over the last week. “Far-right thuggery,” as the Prime-Minister, Kier Starmer, called it, has wreaked havoc, and created fear among minority communities, particularly Muslims and asylum seekers.

White male thugs mounted vicious attacks on police, looted and vandalised businesses, homes and civic buildings, set fire to parked cars and attacked hotels where, the hooligans believed, asylum seekers were staying. In opposition to fascism, thousands of people have come together at anti-racist protests across the country. Community groups have worked to clean up the streets and individuals have launched funding campaigns to raise money to repair the damage done by the rioters.

Tory slogans

Orchestrated online and streamed live by the perpetrators of the chaos, the horrific scenes of civil disorder, were ignited by mis-information around the identity of a young man arrested for killing three children in Stockport. But the environment of hate has been cultivated by right wing politicians and media outlets for years.

Twitter/X, (which under Elon Musk has welcomed fellow extremists), Tik Tok, Facebook and Telegram have served as notice boards for mis-dis-information and outright lies, meeting places for agitators and organising venues.

A range of people made up the marauding mobs: vicious xenophobes and Neo-Nazis; flag waving hooligans looking for a fight; misled simpletons looting shops, and spectators videoing the chaos on their phones, repeating Tory dis-information if questioned, and cheering rioters.

As they threw debris at police some of the rioters chanted slogans used by former (Conservative) ministers, including the previous prime-minister, Rishi Sunak. “Stop The Boats”, one of Sunak’s meaningless but endlessly repeated catchphrases, relating to the terrifying journey undertaken by migrants attempting to travel across the English Channel from France to the UK. ‘Take our country back’, was another vicious phrase repeated by the mob. An incendiary jingle used ad infinitum by Boris Johnson and his cohorts during the Brexit referendum, and recently adapted by Reform UK bigot, Lee Anderson. ‘Take our country back’, from who exactly?

The rioting was a direct result of years of Tory led state racism; years of anti-migrant government policies and hostile media narratives. Most loudly since 2016, Conservative politicians adopted the rhetoric of right wing populism and fuelled prejudice and division wherever they could. They consistently fed poison into the public blood stream and stoked culture wars in the hope of winning votes. In so doing they created a space where far right extremism could ferment and far right political voices, from within there ranks and outside, could drift effortlessly into the mainstream.

Many of the communities that responded most readily were those most severely impacted by the economic decline and decimation of public services resulting from Tory policies, including the car crash that was/is Brexit. The same communities often, that out of ignorance and a kind of perverse nationalism, and fired up by manipulative politicians, had voted for Brexit. Chief among those exploitative politicians was Nigel Farage. A cheerleader for Brexit and now leader of Reform UK – a far right party of misogynists (20% of Reform MP’s recently elected have served prison sentences for violence against women), who has inflamed the violence and given political cover to the rioters.

The likes of Farage, care not for the people they incite to violence or the problems the country faces. They are interested in one thing only, achieving power by sewing social division through the propagation of lies. Lies that gullible ill-informed people believe, lies that are spread and expanded on social media, lies that become imbedded in the consciousness of certain sections of the society, and lies that once adopted, appear to be impossible to erase, even when confronted with the truth.

Racism and Islamophobia

Deliberately inciting civil disorder is a form of Stochastic terrorism,definedas“the repeated use of hate speechor other vilifying, dehumanizing rhetoricby a political leader or other public figure that inspires one or more of the figure’s supporters to commithate crimes or other acts of violenceagainst a targeted person, group, or community.” And politicians like Boris Johnson, Suella Braverman, Kemi Badenoch (the favourite to become the next Tory leader), and Reform UK MP’s, Farage Lee Anderson and Richard Tice, among others, are Stochastic terrorists.

So too is Tommy Robinson (real name, Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon), a nasty piece of work who leads the disbanded English Defence League. Along with other far right activists Robinson has been directing the riots via social media, spreading pernicious lies and mis/dis-information.

Such people have consistently sought to dehumanise migrants, in particular Muslims. The target of their bile is always the same, ‘the foreigner’,‘the other’, anyone, in this case, not white/white British. They adopt and spread conspiracy theories like The Great Replacement ideology (the mad idea that there is a plot to replace the political power and culture of white people living in Western countries with non-whites) and create fear and anger with every utterance they make.

Despite the claims of Farage, some Conservative opportunists and far right protagonists, the rioters do not ‘have a legitimate point’, they do not represent ‘the people’ and they are not protesting government immigration policy. These are race riots and Islamophobia.

There is however anger within many communities at the dreadful state of the country. But none of the mess has been caused by immigration, which has brought enormous benefits to the UK. There is a major problem with the asylum system though, which the Tories broke. They failed to process asylum applications, which has led to a huge backlog of claims, resulting in asylum seekers (estimated30,000) being accommodated in hotels for months on end at taxpayer expense. When processed, far from being found to be ‘illegal’ as is repeatedly stated, 70 – 80% of applicants are granted asylum.

After a series of appalling Conservatives governments the UK is on its knees: public services are in tatters, there is a national housing crisis and, whilst the country has more billionaires than ever, the majority of people, particularly in working class communities are struggling financially, with many families living in poverty. Add to this years of racist rhetoric and ‘othering’ from Tory politicians and xenophobes and you have the perfect scenario for far-right extremists to exploit.

The criminal hooligans who have committed violence, and those inciting violence and racism online, will, Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper hassaid, “face the full force of the law”, and this process has already begun. The police force, which was decimated by Tory cuts, have shown great restraint and professionalism, and the response of the government has been swift and determined. But in order to drive the far right back into the shadows where they belong, and silence the Stochastic terrorists, the Labour government needs to address the frustrations and ingrained social issues that these poisonous groups have exploited, and demonstrate, as it has pledged to do, that politics can actually be a force for good.