As I have argued
in previous posts, the rise in the far right is not a
result of changes in people’s attitudes. In many ways over the last
fifty years people have become more tolerant of minorities and less
racist. What has changed is what is tolerated by the political elite.
There has always
been a minority of people who, other things being equal, would
support a party of the far right that promoted extreme socially
conservative and authoritarian views and which encouraged social
division. A much smaller minority of that minority are prepared to
use violence. Those who went from house to house in Bellfast,
pulling those who were not white on to the streets and burning their
houses, did
not have ‘legitimate concerns’. They were not fed
up with lack of action on immigration, as a Times
editorial absurdly suggested, because immigration has
come right down. Belfast is not ‘flooded’ with asylum seekers,
who comprise
less than 1% of the population. Instead the rioters
are the equivalent of football hooligans who wanted to start fights
with supporters of the other side, or who used to glory in sectarian
violence. People who used to be members of the UVA, the BNP, or
before that the National Front. For some in unionist areas,
non-whites are
the new Catholics.
What has changed is that the leader of the political party with the
most support in the UK incites this violence by calling for “pure
cold rage.” What has changed is that every party on the political
right is calling for large scale deportations including British
citizens. That the right wing press, that once would have not been
associated with such politicians or with any suggestions of inciting
violence, now appear to show no such inhibitions. That the BBC
actively attempts to attract viewers from a far right political
party. That the departing chair of the media regulator describes
Reform’s TV channel as covering the agenda of the majority. That
the most widely used social media website should deliberately amplify
calls by Moscow
supported Tommy Robinson to protest against this
“invader
attack”, and a US Vice President who
talks about a mass invasion of migrants. None of these
actors care that they are inciting race riots, and some positively
welcome it.
All these changes have eroded the social norms we used to have
against racism, dehumanising minorities or exploiting tragic crimes for
political ends. The situation has become a lot worse in the last few
years in part because the fascist government in the US is actively
promoting the UK far right, and because the UK Labour party foolishly
thought they could diminish the popularity of the far right by
parroting its language and policies.
The politicians of the far right will carry on competing amongst
themselves about who can be the most barbaric. The right wing press
is not going to change. Its wealthy owners have fully bought into the
idea that encouraging social division is the best way of protecting
their wealth. The countries that have actively encouraged the far
right in the UK are not going to stop what has so far been a very
successful strategy for them.
The only way we can stop this rapid decline into division and
violence is for the political centre to stand up for the moral
principles most people follow, and ensure the institutions that it
can influence do the same. Condemning the rioters is easy, but this
alone will achieve very little. Condemning the consequences without
addressing the causes is bad politics and bad government.
Claims by those in the right wing media and by right wing politicians
that immigrants are much more like;y to commit crimes need to be
debunked by all politicians who are not on the populist right. The
evidence
is there, so why not use it. It is so easy for the
media to give the impression that violent crime is unusually
associated with immigrants or asylum seekers by publicising the cases
that are and ignoring the much greater number that are not. [1] Media
that does this needs to be condemned for doing so. Media and
politicians that use individual crimes to push their political agenda
should be condemned for doing so. Such actions exploit the victims of
those crimes.
Draw a clear line between concerns about levels of immigration on the
one hand (while also noting that immigration levels have
come right down) and the dehumanisation of the
immigrants who do come here on the other. In many ways what we see
today can be traced back to May’s ‘hostile environment’: the
immoral idea that treating badly immigrants who are here and trying to make a new life will
discourage others from coming. Making it much more difficult for
migrants to become UK citizens is part
of that dehumanisation.
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