Suella Braverman is gone, but her message was heard loud and clear. “Hate marchers” who are not interested in Gaza, but in asserting “the primacy by certain groups – particularly Islamists”. This is how Suella Braverman described pro-Palestine protesters in a piece for the Times last week. Far-right protesters, including Tommy Robinson, turned up in London on Saturday, the day of the pro-Palestine march, to assert their own primacy, and clashed with police. This was not inevitable, but always highly possible. A swirl of Islamophobia and anti-immigration rhetoric have been part of our politics for so long that all it took was one motivated actor to convert them into something explosive.
Her departure won’t change that. I thought Islamophobia, though durable in both mainstream politics and the press, seemed a bit of a retro thing, peaking some time in the early 2010s, then replaced by a more generic, Brexit-triggered hysteria about “sovereignty”. It seemed that the time had come, in our carousel of public enemies, for another to replace Muslims. Brexit obliged, giving us civil servants, judges, lawyers, and treacherous remainers. But it appears that all it takes is one event and one high-profile politician to summon what is now clear has always been lurking. An episode in which Muslims – spoken of often as “immigrant” outsiders, whether British or not – can be cast as the mischievous protagonists, their motivations suspect, their organisation sinister.
