UK Riots: Racism And Islamophobia Meets Community Unity

by Graham Peebles

 August 9, 2024
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Image: YouTube screengrab.

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 Southport. 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, defined as “the repeated use of hate speech or other vilifying, dehumanizing rhetoric by a political leader or other public figure that inspires one or more of the figure’s supporters to commit hate crimes or other acts of violence against 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 (estimated 30,000) 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 has said, “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.

Graham Peebles is a British freelance writer and charity worker. He set up The Create Trust in 2005 and has run education projects in Sri Lanka, Ethiopia and India.  E: grahampeebles@icloud.com  W: www.grahampeebles.org

MAGA and the Fear of Being Eaten

by Ishmael Reed

 August 9, 2024
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A scene from the midseason finale of “The Walking Dead.” Credit: .Gene Page/AMC.

To be a Trump Republican is to live in a horror film. Fears abound. The fear of immigrants, the fear of Woke (a euphemism for Black culture), a fear of books, a fear of cat ladies, a fear of being replaced, a fear of George Soros, and now Anthropophagophobia, the fear of being eaten. In two books that are required reading for far-righters–The Turner Diaries by William Luther Pierce, a physicist who used the pen name Andrew Macdonald, and Unhumans by Jack Posobiec–Blacks commit cannibalism.

By invoking Hannibal Lecter, Trump is warning his Red Caps that Black cannibals aren’t their only threat. According to him, millions are arriving in the United States to find some MAGA meat to munch on. When confronted by live cannibals, their victims will miss the old days when the cannibals were “The Walking Dead,” who moved so slowly that one could escape.

What would an Anthropophagi recipe book look like? Would there be instructions on baking, broiling, or frying MAGAs? What kind of wine would go with MAGA meat?

Now, Donald Trump is withholding the bad news. Who said he was incapable of restraint? He says that cannibals like Lecter only enjoy their prey at dinner. Knowing their appetites, cannibals will not be satisfied merely with dinner,Donald. They’ll want MAGA meat for breakfast, threatening the bacon industry, and for lunch as well. What about snacks?

They will make demands. They’ll request that DoorDash or Grub Hub deliver their MAGA meat.

So, though smart-aleck elitist pundits dismiss Donald Trump’s invoking Hannibal Lecter, the cannibal, as a sign of cognitive decline, his idea of invading cannibals and joining those who are already here fits into the mainstream of MAGA thought.

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The US Supreme Court to the Homeless:

 Drop Dead!

by Eve Ottenberg

 August 9, 2024
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Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

So income from your three jobs won’t cover your rent increase. There are no beds at the shelter and public housing has a waiting list decades long. You buy a tent and sleeping bag and move into a town park. This would have worked until June 28, when the Supreme Court essentially ruled that municipalities can kick out homeless encampments even without available shelter space. You ask the cop rousting and ticketing you where you’re supposed to go? He says outside city limits. You ask how you’re supposed to get to your three jobs? Not his problem. How are you supposed to eat without those jobs? He arrests you. You can’t make bail so you lose your employment. Welcome to destitute America, a bleak, fatal landscape peopled by between 3 and 4 million suffering souls.

Whence that number, when the official statistic is 653,000 homeless? Well, there’s another stat: 2.5 million homeless children. They are not all orphans. So let’s say every group of three kids is accompanied by one vagrant adult. That brings the number of poor folk sleeping under the stars to between 3 and 4 million – at a minimum. But of course, they’re not all dozing on the sidewalk. Many double up on couches of friends or relatives, while the shelters are packed. Thus at least one percent of the U.S. population lacks a place called home. Increasingly these are not mere vagabonds, but the working poor, with the lucky ones owning a car that serves as a domicile. Some cities, like Los Angeles, have enlightened policies regarding vehicle dwellers and designate special lots where they can park – and sleep – without fear of arrest. But not all localities are so understanding. In many, sleeping in your car will land you smack into trouble with the police.

The Supreme Court decision makes a bad situation worse. Previously, if local shelters had no beds, that was treated – by some – as a mitigating circumstance, and so encampments were allowed to stay. But this hard-hearted ruling rubs salt in the wound: those without a roof are deemed too unsightly to remain anywhere in view. So of course, ambitious politicians, like California Democratic governor Gavin Newsom, who know very well how devastating videos of Los Angeles and San Francisco tent cities are to his electoral prospects, when in the hands of GOP opponents, have stepped right up and announced these offensively indigent people will be moved. The Supreme Court decision is hailed as a breakthrough, a piece of common sense that will permit cities to sweep the impoverished out of sight, a bit of progress – instead of the invitation to ethnic cleansing of the poor that it is.

The high court ruled that people sleeping outside can be ticketed and that anti-camping laws are not cruel and unusual punishment. “The Constitution’s Eighth Amendment,” wrote “Justice” Neil Gorsuch, “does not authorize federal judges to…dictate this Nation’s homelessness policy.” So instead, Gorsuch dictates it. And cruel and unusual it is. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented: “Sleep is a biological necessity, not a crime. For some people, sleeping outside is their only option.” The town of Grants Pass, Oregon of the eponymous case, she wrote, “punishes them for being homeless. That is unconscionable and unconstitutional.” It’s also the definition of cruelty. But then, no one ever accused the conservative majority on the Supreme Court of too much kindness.

Justice Elena Kagan made a telling comparison: Sleeping is “like breathing. You can say breathing is conduct, too, but presumably you would not think that it’s OK to criminalize breathing in public. And for a homeless person who has no place to go, sleeping in public is kind of like breathing in public.” Don’t worry, Kagan – if your conservative colleagues could criminalize indigent people breathing in public, they would. Just imagine if air were a commodity and some couldn’t pay. What do you think would happen to them if the local gendarme caught them breathing it for free in a park? The case would hurry to the Supreme Court, where Gorsuch and his reactionary brethren would likely condemn those who breathe publicly, or shoplifting air, to suffocation.

Homelessness has increased 12 percent since 2022. Why? Because rents have soared and so has inflation, as corporations gouge consumers for everything from potatoes, to Advil, to car insurance. According to CNN June 28, California hosts 180,000 homeless people, more than any other state, doubtless due to sky-high prices there for everything, but especially housing, as the state caters to wealthy tech bros and other such aristocrats. Another lure of California for your average vagabond is the weather. Until climate catastrophe-induced heat began walloping the West Coast, the temperatures there were not life-threatening – particularly in winter. Now, however, with homeless people dying of burns from 146-degree summer sidewalks in places like Phoenix, Arizona, California summers and fires are another, very dangerous matter. Anyway, because so many vagrants flock to it, California is closely watched by other states for how it treats these people. And the news ain’t good. Newsom basically said, “boot these destitute campers out.”

The National Alliance to End Homelessness, CNN reports, thinks this ruling “may shift the burden of the homelessness crisis to law enforcement.” This tactic, they charge, “has consistently failed to reduce homelessness.” But ah, the only means to reduce homelessness, as everyone, including the high court, well knows, is affordable housing, and the court dictated nothing in that regard, so yes, clearly its legal opinion’s thrust is to toss people who can’t pay rent into the tender arms, and guns, of the police. The Supreme Court’s ruling will fill the jails and morgues and leave the cause of these innocent peoples’ misery untouched. You could even say that the true criminals here are those who profit from a systemic scam in which 15.1 million homes sat empty as of 2022 and in which a human right – housing – morphed into an asset for predatory investors, so that for every person sleeping rough there are multiple, spanking clean new abodes with no one living in them.

Some argue that poor people have plenty of rights – the right to sleep under overpasses in winter, the right to skip meals, the right to forego chemo for cancer. The people who make such arguments are not worth the time of day, but unfortunately, they form the conservative majority on the highest U.S. court. Now they say the destitute don’t even have the right to sleep under bridges, because they don’t have the right to sleep at all. With the morality of Ebenezer Scrooge before meeting Jacob Marley’s ghost, these jurists cannot be convinced that human beings have economic rights – the right to food, shelter, medicine and education – or indeed biological rights. They regard that as commie nonsense rather than basic human decency, and so they issue wicked opinions. In Racine’s immortal words, echoing Psalms, “I have seen the wicked rise upon the earth.” Good in the world is weak and often self-effacing, minding its own business, and frequently sleeps under an overpass. When it makes it up high, onto the Supreme Court – it is speedily overruled.

Eve Ottenberg is a novelist and journalist. Her latest book is Busybody. She can be reached at her website.