UK
Diane Abbott: The racist violence has shed an unforgiving light on the long-standing anti-immigrant narrative
By Diane Abbott MP
The racist violence, that exploded all over England this month, has shed an unforgiving light on the long-standing anti-immigrant narrative in Britain. This has been constant, angry and almost fact-free.
The obvious point is that for decades, men and women commonly described in the media as “immigrants” had not emigrated from anywhere. They were British citizens who happened to be non-white but for years “immigrant” had been a commonly accepted euphemism in politics for black or South Asian.
In recent years, politicians began to talk about “illegal” immigrants. But many of the men and women described like that were asylum seekers, and there is no such thing as an “illegal” asylum seeker. Everyone has the right to claim asylum. In fact, despite what you might imagine from the ranting of some politicians, the majority of asylum claims (75%) in Britain are successful. Furthermore, far from the United Kingdom taking in a wholly disproportionate number of asylum seekers, the UK is home to approximately 1% of the 27.1 million refugees across the world.
Yet decade after decade, the framework for talking about immigration has been relentlessly hostile. A column in The Sun Newspaper by Katie Hopkins with the title “Rescue boats? I’d use gunships to stop migrants“ may have been a little extreme but its tone was typical of right-wing media.
With this hostile, dehumanising coverage of immigration and asylum, it should not have been a surprise for politicians and the media when the racist violence erupted – but it was.
The media then responded in different ways. The Guardian covered the violence in a reasonably balanced way. The Telegraph could not bring itself to recant its consistently anti-immigrant coverage. So, despite the reality that most of the racist violence was white, it managed to design a front page which made it look like Asian and white violence were evenly balanced. The Express bowed to the facts and on the days following the racist violence had a front page that featured a huge picture of anti-racist demonstrators with the headline “United Britain stands firm against the thugs,” but the Daily Mail front page was the most remarkable.
This is a newspaper which for years had featured front-page headlines like “Migrants: How many more can we take?”, “Migrants spark housing crisis” and “1 million more migrants are on their way”. But in the days after the racist violence, it read like it had been taken over by an anti-racist collective. A notable Daily Mail front page had a huge picture of demonstrators with the headline “Night anti-hate marchers faced down the thugs” It may have been only temporary, but for a few days the right-wing media had to swallow their anti-immigrant propaganda.
Over the years, the media has played a key role in whipping up hatred and fear of migrants. But ultimately, migration is a political question, and politicians bear much responsibility for the social climate in which the racist violence this month occurred. Remarkably, the right-wing politicians like Suella Braverman, who had been most vehemently anti-immigrant, fell completely silent. She had claimed that “the Islamists, the extremists and the antisemites are in charge now,” but faced with violent right-wing extremists threatening people up and down the country, Suella had nothing to say.
Others paid lip service to the undesirability of attacking mosques, assaulting black and brown Britons or trying to set fire to hotels full of asylum seekers. But they quickly pivoted to talking about a “culture of silence” on the effects of immigration and straightforward anti-Muslim rhetoric. One leading conservative politician said that any Muslim shouting “Allahu Akbar” should be arrested. The phrase is the equivalent of a Christian shouting Hallelujah. It is pure Islamophobia to suggest that a Muslim saying a similar phrase should be put in the hands of the police.
But Labour politicians’ responses were the most interesting. From the beginning, you did not have to be a political scientist to understand that the violence was racist. The violence was targeted at mosques rather than churches, at non-white Britons rather than whites, and the rioters shouted endless racist slogans. But throughout the racist violence, in all his public statements, Keir Starmer refused to mention racism and Islamophobia – instead, he spoke about “thuggery” The racist violence for the Prime Minister was occurring in a social and political vacuum. His Home Secretary Yvette Cooper may have mentioned race in the final days of the violence but, like her boss, she was much more comfortable talking about “thuggery.”
The Labour Government insisted on seeing the racist violence as a purely criminal justice matter. In recent days, Yvette has been talking about the rioters’ lack of respect for the police. But the Labour Government has flatly refused to talk about the intrinsically racist and Islamophobic nature of the violence. It is entirely clear why not. It may be these are subjects that they would rather not talk about. But it may also be down to the fact that in a number of constituencies won by Labour in this year’s general election the new, far right and nakedly anti-immigrant Reform Party came second. It may then have been a worry for them that if the Labour government called out the racist and Islamophobic nature of the violence, some Labour candidates in tight marginals risk losing votes to Reform in the next general election.
Politicians of all parties have been talking about the need to look at the causation of the violence. It is true that many of the communities where the racist violence occurred are economically marginalised. But the fundamental cause for the violence was racism. Sadly, not acknowledging this openly, does not make the racist violence less likely to recur.
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