Mosques under attack; hotels housing asylum seekers set alight; black and brown people set upon by racist mobs; “race checkpoints” set up on crossroads.
My mum – terrified at what she’s seeing – pleads with me and my sisters: don’t go out unless you have to. Definitely don’t go out alone. It is a message heeded by one of my sister’s workplaces, which cancels her shifts, citing safety fears. She wears the hijab and going out puts her at risk.
How did we get to this point, where far-right, Islamophobic racist violence is seen across the country and fear grips British Muslims and people of colour?
The fuse may have been set alight by online disinformation and secretive social media channels, but this explosion of far-right violence has been decades in the making. And while Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (AKA Tommy Robinson) and his mob of far-right agitators are its immediate instigators, much of Britain’s political and media class is complicit in laying the groundwork for this eruption of hate.
This truth of how we reached this point flips the normal classist narrative about racism in Britain. The reality is that racism isn’t a bottom-up expression of popular discontent, but a top-down project propagated by people in positions of power.
Just think about how the billionaire-owned rightwing press drip-feeds hate into British politics, splashing fearmongering headlines across their papers: “Islamist plotters in schools across the UK” – the Telegraph; “1 in 5 Brit Muslims’ sympathy for jihadis” – the Sun; “Migrants spark housing crisis” – the Daily Mail.
Or think how Conservative politicians normalise far-right rhetoric, dehumanising people and spreading hate. From “one nation” Conservatives such as David Cameron who as prime minister described migrants as a “swarm”, to the likes of Suella Braverman who as home secretary said there was a migrant “invasion”. Rishi Sunak’s “Stop the boats” slogan is now a far-right chant and just this week the Tory party leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick said the police should “immediately arrest” people shouting “Allahu Akbar” on the street, the Arabic phrase meaning “God is great” – the equivalent of a Christian saying “hallelujah”.
This rhetoric was propagated further by the privately educated, former City trader Nigel Farage, who claims to be a man of the people. In the general election campaign, he said many Muslims didn’t share “British values” and this week promoted the “two-tier policing” conspiracy.
But it’s not just rightwing politicians, pundits and publications at fault. So-called centrists too often refuse to push back against this hate as well, sometimes peddling the same dangerous tropes or dismissing the concerns of those subject to this hatred.
I was confronted by this painful reality just this week. On Monday morning I was invited on to ITV’s Good Morning Britain to talk about the recent racist riots, only to be interrogated – and it did feel like an interrogation – about why I, a Muslim MP, thought it was important to call the recent racist violence Islamophobic. “Why is it important to use that specific word?” Kate Garraway repeatedly questioned me.
Almost before I could answer, and behaving with the same sneering condescension he did throughout the segment, the former Labour shadow chancellor and now broadcaster Ed Balls repeatedly interrupted me, seemingly incredulous that I thought this hate should be called by its proper name. The show has now been hit with more than 8,200 Ofcom complaints about that morning’s episode, many of them about his handling of my interview.
This wasn’t a one-off, even for Ed Balls. In the summer of 2010, as he set out his Labour leadership pitch in the Guardian, Balls blamed “eastern European migrants” for a “direct impact on the wages, terms and conditions of too many people”. He’s far from the only Labour figure to echo rightwing talking points: from then leader of the House of Commons Jack Straw, who in 2006 said that he asked veiled Muslim women to remove their veils in meetings with him, to the former Labour MP Jonathan Ashworth recently claiming asylum seekers can stay in hotels for “the rest of their lives”.
These attitudes aren’t confined to public statements either. Martin Forde KC’s 2022 report on Labour’s internal processes found the party operated a “hierarchy of racism”, and he later revealed concerns about how it treats “anti-black racism and Islamophobia”. This finding accords with my own experience as the youngest Muslim MP.
This is what I mean when I say much of Britain’s political and media class is complicit in the recent wave of racist, Islamophobic anti-migrant violence. From those who target Muslims and migrants with rabid enthusiasm, to those who fail to combat these rightwing narratives, responsibility for British politics being where it is now – racist riots and all – lies with this class.
And it is no mystery why this class fails this test. When public services have been decimated and living standards have taken the biggest hit on record, people in positions of power play divide-and-rule to maintain their privilege.
And so, an alternative to this morally bankrupt scapegoating is urgently needed – and on Wednesday night in towns and cities across Britain we saw the power of solidarity. Thousands upon thousands of people took to the streets, facing down the far right and defending their communities. Days earlier, trade unions such as the Fire Brigades Union, the RMT, the National Education Union and the Communication Workers Union had similarly taken a stand, calling on their branches and members to contact mosques and migrant centres to offer support and solidarity.
These actions stand in a long tradition of working-class unity, reflecting an important reality: the enemy of the working class travels by private jet, not migrant dinghy.
Before it is too late, progressives across Britain need to rediscover this truth, pushing back against those who deny it and peddle racist hate.
Zarah Sultana is the independent MP for Coventry South
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