Home Secretary Yvette Cooper during a walk through Lewisham town centre, in south London, as part of a visit to speak about neighbourhood policing and meet with policing teams, July 8, 2024
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Cooper cites both far-right and Islamist hate. But political Islam has no profile in Britain at all. She, like Lord Walney, seeks to lump violent fascist riots together with the peaceful Palestine solidarity movement, whose mass demos have been slandered as “hate marches” by the Tories, right-wing media and fascist agitators such as Tommy Robinson.
Where jihadist violence has reached Britain, it has had more to do with our state’s hyper-violent foreign policy than online grooming. The deadliest terror attack of the last decade, that on the Manchester Arena by Salman Abedi in 2017, was carried out by a man our government had helped travel to Libya to fight in a British-backed Islamist revolt against its government, and whose return to Britain was facilitated by MI5.
A state campaign against extremism “across the political spectrum” will reinforce the clampdowns on protest rights and free speech associated with the Conservatives.
That Labour’s current leadership will deploy it to silence left criticism seems predictable given their record: this is the party that banned its branches from discussing the suspension of its former leader Jeremy Corbyn on the ludicrous grounds that this would make Jewish members feel unsafe.
Bans on “fake news” could only be welcomed if we had total confidence in the objectivity and fairness of those sifting the truth from the lies. X, Facebook and indeed the British state are not objective. There is no way such a ban would not simply become a form of political censorship exercised by the ruling class.
Liz Kendall – continuing the Tories’ treatment of the vulnerable (image: Skwawkbox)
Could anything provide better proof that Starmer’s party is just the red-badged version of the murderous Tories?
Liz Kendall’s (DWP) is trying to block the release of data from reports compiled under the Tories on how many people’s deaths were linked to the hated and punitive Universal Credit (UC). If released, the information is expected to show what internal investigations were carried out by the DWP into the deaths of claimants since 2019.
Data the Tories did release in 2021 showed that 43% of UC claimants were in food poverty – well before the steep rises in food and energy prices caused by corporate price-gouging in the so-called ‘cost of living emergency. The previous year, the Conservative government had been heavily criticised by the United Nations’ poverty expert for its intentional cruelty and the misery it inflicts on millions.
The Disability News Service (DNS) had been trying since November to obtain the DWP data on the number of internal process reviews (IPRs) it carried out following deaths of UC claimants and what actions investigators had recommended the DWP take to prevent further deaths.
Last month, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) ordered the Labour DWP to release the information, but the ICO has announced that the Labour government is appealing the decision and trying to block the release.
DNS had also reported that Labour is also blocking the release of information about IPRs carried out into the work capability assessment (WCA) under the Tories. As commentator Kernow Damo has pointed out, Labour is withholding information that would damn the Tories – and the only feasible reason for doing that is because Keir Starmer’s DWP Secretary, right-wing horror Liz Kendall, is planning to continue the Tories processes and policies.
It’s hard to imagine a more perfect proof that Labour is the Tory party with a red rosette than the red Tories trying to hide proof of the evils of the blue Tories they’re supposed to be opposing.
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.
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 andjust 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.
The far-right – emboldened by UK politicians & media – are attacking Black and brown people in the UK. When politicians play the race card, minorities pay the price. We stand with migrants & people of colour against racism & Islamophobia & oppose those who divide working people. pic.twitter.com/FKTVWCDzsj
People clean up debris outside a Holiday Inn Express whose walls bear graffiti reading “Get Out England” and a racial epithet on August 5, 2024 in Tamworth, England.
“There are politicians and there are journalists who have played an active role in fanning the flames of hate and division, and we are seeing that play out,” said Zarah Sultana.
As British Prime Minister Keir Starmer covened an emergency security meeting on Monday to respond to violent attacks on immigrant and Muslim communities that have spread across the United Kingdom in recent days, progressive MP Zarah Sultana said the crisis—fueled by rampant disinformation and xenophobia—must serve as a reckoning for politicians and journalists who have “fanned the flames” of hatred for years.
Sultana, who represents Coventry South in the House of Commons, appeared on ITV’s “Good Morning Britain” to discuss the violent riots that have taken place in at least a dozen cities across the U.K. in recent days, mostly in England, with far-right protesters attacking mosques, libraries, and a hotel housing asylum-seekers.
The attacks have been in response to disinformation that has pinned the blame for a deadly stabbing attack on a children’s dance class in Southport, England last week on undocumented immigrants. The suspect was born and raised in the U.K., according to police.
“Rather than saying, this is the result of political decisions made by consecutive governments, people have blamed and scapegoated minorities.”
Sultana said that the violent attacks in cities including Blackpool, Leeds, and Manchester “shouldn’t be a surprise,” considering the years the British government—led for 14 years by the Conservative Party until the Labour Party won last month’s elections—has spent pushing anti-immigration policies and demonizing asylum-seekers, with the help of national news outlets.
“There is decades of work by the right-wing press and by politicians who have fanned the flames of this hate,” said Sultana in a panel discussion that also included journalists from The Daily Mail. “When we look at the role that media outlets like GB News has played, that The Daily Mail has played… There are politicians and there are journalists who have played an active role in fanning the flames of hate and division, and we are seeing that play out.”
The media and political class is complicit in the far right, racist and Islamophobic violence we’re seeing across our country.
Andrew Pierce of The Daily Mail took issue with Sultana’s remarks, demanding that she provide examples of anti-Muslim news stories in the paper.
The lawmaker did so after the broadcast, posting an image of 16 front pages from the outlet, including ones that asked “how many more” migrants the U.K. can take, referred to asylum-seekers as “illegals,” and claimed that migrants are taking the majority of jobs in the U.K. and sparking a “housing crisis.”
Here’s just a few examples of Daily Mail headlines that have fanned the flames of hate and normalised Islamophobic and anti-migrant rhetoric #GMBpic.twitter.com/kqzQqewnGk
Sultana added that former Home Secretary Suella Braverman referred to refugees arriving in the U.K. as an “invasion” and far-right Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said in May that British Muslims do not share “British values.”
“So when we look at the complicity,” said Sultana, “there’s a lot of mirrors that people have to be looking into.”
Sultana also implored politicians and the British media to explicitly refer to the riots over the weekend as Islamophobic, noting that Prime Minister Keir Starmer and others have denounced the attacks as racist but have not clearly expressed solidarity with the Muslim communities that have been targeted.
“Naming it as Islamophobia is really important because that allows us to shape our response,” said Sultana. “If we’re not identifying what is happening, the language that is being used and what this is about, we’re not going to be able to address this fundamentally.”
“Why is there such controversy around calling it Islamophobia?” asked Sultana after “Good Morning Britain” host Ed Balls dismissed her concerns, displaying what the lawmaker called “sneering contempt.”
The sneering contempt of ‘journalists’ will never stop me from calling out racism and Islamophobic hate. pic.twitter.com/cQoNKDzJ78
The interview took place a week after three children were killed and 10 were injured in a knife attack in Southport. The 17-year-old suspect, Axel Rudakubana, was born and raised in Britain, according to authorities, who took the unusual step of making his identity public to counter disinformation that quickly spread online and fueled riots that first began in Southport the day after the crime.
The first riot included anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant demonstrators throwing bricks at a mosque in the town, setting cars on fire, and damaging a convenience store.
The authorities’ decision to disclose the suspect’s identity did not stop the violence from escalating over the weekend, with rioters setting a library on fire in Liverpool, burning books, and attempting to block firefighters from putting out the flames on Saturday.
In Rotherham, an anti-immigration mob broke into a hotel housing asylum-seekers and attempted to set the building on fire while blocking exits.
Nearly 150 people were arrested for taking part in the attacks, and Starmer warned Sunday that “those who have participated in this violence will face the full force of the law.”
“This is not protest. It is organized, violent thuggery,” said Starmer.
BJ Harrington, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for public order, said in a statement Sunday that “disinformation is a huge driver of this appalling violence and we know a lot of those attending these so-called protests are doing so in direct response to what they’ve read online.”
“Often posts are being shared and amplified by high profile accounts. We’re working hard to counteract this,” added Harrington. “They won’t win.”
While calling on the government and media to directly confront the Islamophobia that has been fomented in the U.K. in recent decades, Sultana said the new Labour government should also correct the austerity policies that have caused unrest and scapegoating of immigrants and Muslim communities.
“The economic system which has allowed inequality to exacerbate in this country, has brought down living standards,” said Sultana. “Our communities have faced the brunt of Tory austerity, and what has happened on the right-wing side of politics, in the media and in politics, is that migrants, Muslims, and trans people have been blamed for people not being able to access council housing, not being able to get [National Health Service] appointments, not being able to find school places for their kids. Rather than saying, this is the result of political decisions made by consecutive governments, people have blamed and scapegoated minorities.”
