The British author Sathnam Sanghera has written best-selling books about the impact of the British Empire. In an interview with me recently he mentioned one of the least discussed facts among the British themselves about that empire. British migrants and their descendants – some of whom call themselves “expats” or expatriates – are found on every continent on Earth.
The British are among the world’s most accomplished immigrants, in north America and Australia, across Europe, the Gulf, South Africa and elsewhere. Ironic, you may think. When migrants come the other way – from former British colonies into Britain – there has been both integration and discrimination. There’s also been violence, including right now.
The Windrush generation – those from the Caribbean brought to the UK from 1948 onwards provided much needed workers for the British economy but were often badly treated. In 1958, there was a backlash including serious rioting in Notting Hill in London. By 1968, the Conservative MP Enoch Powell made a famously inflammatory speech to prophesying “rivers of blood” in Britain as a result of migration from the former empire. (He was wrong.)
Nowadays, some among a new generation of right wing politicians – people who you may think should know better – have been blowing their own dog whistles on race and religion. This has stirred up fears among some white English people, especially in deprived areas, even though all these propagandists do is recycle decades-old right-wing cliches of despair.
Miraculously migrants are taking “your” job, while somehow also unfairly receiving government benefits from the taxpayer. They are taking up health care when in reality many British people from once migrant families are now respected doctors, nurses and play a key role in caring professions. But a particularly horrendous crime has inspired a widespread outbreak of anti-migrant and Islamophobic violence in Rotherham, Bolton, Southport, Hull, Middlesbrough and elsewhere. It’s based – yet again – on lies, distortions and spurious rumours, some of it fuelled by very unwise words from a few politicians.
First the facts. A horrific mass stabbing occurred on July 29 at a dance studio in Southport on Merseyside. Three children were killed, 10 other people injured. Lies about the alleged killer were promoted on social media. These lies – including the lie that the attacker is Muslim – stirred up members of far right and fascist organisations including the so-called English Defence League (EDL). That caused riots at Southport mosque and elsewhere.
A small number of well-known right-wing activists and pot-stirrers, from the safety of TV studios and behind keyboards, continued to stoke the fires of violence on social media and elsewhere.
Most British politicians from almost all parties have tried to calm fears and correct inflammatory and inaccurate comments. But the Reform party leader Nigel Farage and others of a right-wing English nationalist persuasion have continued peddling scaremongering falsehoods of a kind not worth quoting.
Steve Rotheram, the metro mayor of Liverpool, told a TV programme: “Whilst senior politicians like Farage should be condemning these people – he’s not, he’s excusing them. He’s giving them some legitimacy to go out and perpetrate some of these acts.” Neil Basu, a respected former counter terrorism officer at Scotland Yard, said: “Nigel Farage is giving the EDL succour, undermining the police, creating conspiracy theories and giving a false basis for the attacks on the police.”
It could be a long, hot summer for the British police. But it is worth noting that people of all faiths or none, people of diverse ages and racial backgrounds, including a number of plucky grandmothers, have come out to stand with their Muslim neighbours and against the rioters on the far right.
The street violence is a distraction that suits only a few reckless political figures. Two things stand out from the history of British violence involving race or religion. First, most people support the police. Arrests will be made and the street thugs will have time to contemplate their behaviour, in some cases, in jail.
Second, the right-wing or far-right political agitators historically do not win. Oswald Mosley’s fascists were disgraced in the 1930s. Enoch Powell killed his own political career in 1968 with “rivers of blood”. He failed to lead the Conservative Party, failed to become prime minister and ended in relative obscurity in Northern Ireland.
Meanwhile, here’s a completely different story. A chess prodigy Shreyas Royal aged only 15 has become the youngest ever British chess grandmaster. Six years ago, he and his family, under new anti-immigration laws, were on the verge of being sent back to India. Sajid Javid, then home secretary, stepped in and now we can celebrate a British success story from a talented immigrant family.
Mr Javid, by the way, comes from a family with their roots in Pakistan. Perhaps the time has come to decide that British people – whatever their race, religion or background – who terrorise others should be considered as precisely that, terrorists. And treated as such.
