Opinion

The UK’s far-right riots are the violent spasms of a dying British society


August 11, 2024 

Anti-racist protesters take part in a ‘Stop The Far Right National Day’ demonstration in Stratford against recent far right extremist demonstrations against immigrants and the Muslim communities in London, United Kingdom on August 10, 2024. [Ray Tang – Anadolu Agency]

by Muhammad Hussein


Long gone are those days of play and relaxation by a bustling beach in a British seaside town, where you would set up a windbreaker with family and friends, take a dip in the cool waters of the summer shoreline, stroll by the pier, enjoy the numerous vibrant cafes overlooking the beach, and delight in the temperamental British weather or the sunshine while it lasted.

Perhaps these are largely the ramblings of nostalgia from the rose-tinted lenses of youth, but the slow and gradual shift of the British seaside town from a vibrant holiday destination between the 1950s and the early 2000s to the grey, dull, and dilapidated areas we see today is hardly a myth. It is true that Britain’s domestic tourism industry and the lifeblood of its formerly prosperous towns and cities have faded into insignificance and been decaying over the decades, and with that, so has the soul of much of Britain’s society.

Walk along any one of such towns in the English holiday counties, and it is hard to miss the empty or shut-down arcades, the boarded up shops and cafes, the growing presence of the homeless or drug-addicted outcasts and the rowdy anti-social specimens who are what remains of the youth, with the beaches scattered with a few families, couples, or dog-walkers.

It is a grim picture, and one that is not the case for all British seaside and inland towns, but certainly a growing majority of them. It also seems to be a reflection of the concerns not so eloquently articulated by the mobs of far-right rioters who have swept across the UK in recent weeks. They see the state of modern Britain and their decimated and abandoned regions outside of the major cities, and they seek to ‘take the country back’. But take it back from who or from what?

Rather than seeing the cause of their dilapidation in a number of factors such as the rise in international travel to warmer holiday destinations, or in the dramatic increase in technology usage amongst the youth, or in the declining birth rates, or in the deterioration of the family unit which was a key player in the bustling beaches, or in the societal ravages of drugs and alcoholism, these forgotten masses have only the immigrants and their British-born descendants in their sights.

In reality, these rioters are the violent spasms of a dying society, not due to their whiteness or their Britishness, but due to their stagnation and their determination not to recognise the true causes of their deterioration. These spasms will come in multiple waves – this one being only the beginning of the shifting tide – but they all signal the gradual death of their society, at their own hands.




Anti-racist protesters take part in a ‘Stop The Far Right National Day’ demonstration in Stratford against recent far right extremist demonstrations against immigrants and the Muslim communities in London, United Kingdom on August 10, 2024. [Ray Tang – Anadolu Agency]They will, of course, continue to blame mass immigration and the apparent societal problems that come with it, and while there is some credence to the view that multiculturalism is failing in certain areas and that societies are usually most ideal when kept homogenous, the far-right fails to realise the dynamics regarding crime and immigrant-descended communities.

Racist riots and imagined purity – paradox: The UK’s battle with its multicultural identity

As articulated in an article last year in relation to the riots that swept through France – that time involving ethnic minority communities – the claim that a foreign ‘takeover’ of Europe is taking place hardly logical. Although it is easy to market that perspective using a wealth of online footage showing foreign “military-age males” arriving on Britain’s shores and ethnic minority communities committing crime in certain rundown areas, such a perspective does not look at the situation from an objective bird’s eye perspective and entirely misses the forest for the trees.

Even if the ethnic British population does become a minority, it does not necessarily mean the downfall of Britannia or a foreign ‘invasion’ or ‘takeover’. A group or ethnicity needs three primary areas of control in order to dominate a territory and its population: government, finance, and security.

An ethnicity that dominates the political class, that holds a monopoly on finance and is responsible for the flow of money, and that leads the security services and armed forces is an ethnicity that has guaranteed control, usually regardless of the numbers that oppose it. How else did European colonial powers rule over vast populations in their empires? How else does the Israeli state rule over a Palestinian population which still outnumbers Jewish Israelis who – despite all efforts – are fighting a losing demographic battle?

A majority does not necessitate rulership, and rulership does not require a majority. A strong and stable monopoly over security, as well as an established elite who control financial capital, are all an ethnic group needs to maintain power over the majority. The white British still dominate all those sectors and still rule the union’s ‘Establishment’, and are likely to continue to do so for many decades to come.

According to the UK government’s Office for National Statistics, births during the year of 2019 showed that the number of births by the white British population in England and Wales still far outnumbered the number of births by ethnic minority populations, including foreign white immigrants. The statistics do, however, display a significant decline in white British births over the years, with almost 380,000 having taken place in 2019 compared to over 440,000 in 2007.

It has contributed to the decline of the UK’s overall birth rate over the years, and the only thing seeming to prop it up is the birth rate of ethnic minorities, especially from the South Asian ethnicities and notably the foreign white ethnicities, which have all increased during that period.

Again, that does not signify a foreign ‘takeover’ of the UK and its white British population – as the far-right likes to think it does – and was not caused by ethnic minorities, nor was it caused by the Muslim population or even the British government. The prosperity of some communities does not necessarily come at the cost of others.

Instead, it only further represents the personal choices, priorities, or circumstances of the white British population itself. The British far-right has only its own communities to blame, and no one is preventing them from living their lives, increasing their birth rates, and prospering.

Read: UK gov’t, police must to do more to tackle ‘xenophobic ideology’ driving riots, IHRC says

As the old society crumbles and decays at its own hands and due to its failure to maintain its vibrancy and lifestyles that lead to prosperity, it is this new British society and gathering of communities – largely with foreign origins, by chance – that has the potential to lead a revival of the host nation and its capacity for civilisation.

These far-right rioters sweeping throughout the UK – and, at other times, throughout Europe – see their demise with open eyes, but their eyes are clouded as to the true reasons of their current state.

Rather than blaming the immigrant communities and the new Brits, far-right sympathisers would be better off focusing on the revival of their home communities and urban towns, not only through financial investment and strategic rebuilding, but primarily through the revival of their personal and family lives along with a values-based set of ideals rarely found in other than faith and religion.

There is a major obstacle in the path toward such a solution, however, and that is the scourge of foreign state-backed interference, which the British government has now acknowledged to have likely played a significant role in stoking the recent riots.

The government’s investigation is, for now, focused on the interference of states such as Russia and Iran, but currently overlook the involvement of Israel, its agents, and its affiliates in backing Britain’s far-right and likely in instigating the civil unrest.

Tel Aviv – like any country that uses state-backed subversive methods to groom instability and exert influence over political factions within those countries – has no intention of letting the British and European far-right see the true cause of their communities’ demise, and will only further stoke racist sentiments in the years to come to create ‘an angrier world’.

Read: Islamophobia unites Israel and Europe’s far-right