Britain’s Migrants -  Target of Vicious Racist Attacks

(As published in Countercurrents.org on 8 August 2024)

The British neo-fascist organisations like the English Defence League, Patriotic Alternative and British Movement are reported to have been behind the recent widespread violence on the streets of Scotland, England and Northern Ireland. The violence started on Tuesday evening in Southport and spread to many other cities including Manchester, Stoke-on-Trent, Rotherham and London over the weekend. At the time of writing, this mindless violence showed no sign of abating. The authorities have had to deploy riot police, police dogs and helicopters in many cities. 

The rioters driven by far-right politics, are targeting the minority migrant population, Muslims, attacking mosques and destroying temporary hotel accommodation provided for the asylum seekers. This recent spate of racist mob violence started after three very young girls (aged 6, 7 and 9 years) were stabbed to death. Eight other children were also injured by a knife-wielding youth, as well as two adults who tried to provide protection. The suspected attacker has been arrested and is reported to be a 17-year-old British youth, born to Rwandan origin parents settled in Britain. Only a thorough police investigation will reveal the motivation behind the horrific attack. 

The news of the attack went viral on social media with misinformation -- that the attacker was a migrant black Muslim, and false claims that he had arrived in the UK on a boat. This started an organised attack on black people, and the police,  destruction of shops in Asian populated areas, with damaging and burning of cars. Al Jazeera reported the use of phrases such as, “Enough is enough,” “Save our kids” and “Stop the boats” seen online. In various mob rallies shouts of “We want our country back” and “Pakis out” have also been reported.

The current Labour government was quick to blame the violence on “coordinated”, “far-right”, “organised thuggery”. It failed to acknowledge the far-right as politically motivated neo-fascism. To effectively tackle this rising menace requires a political solution. To simply dismiss the problem as thuggery by small groups of individuals will not stop the escalation of violence. The UK political class including the previous Tory government, under Rishi Sunak, failed to acknowledge the problems in health, education, housing and the lack of decently paid jobs. Such failures result from increasingly failed policies of capitalist systems. Instead, they hoped to divert people’s attention onto the minority immigrant population and asylum seekers arriving on small boats across the Channel. Their discredited policy to castigate asylum seekers to Rwanda was not only in violation of international laws but they failed to explain how stopping the boats would address the said problems in Britain. The Tories, however, lost the recent election but not before generating the false fear, in certain sections of society, that black migrants are the root cause of their worries. This fear has also been fuelled by sections of the media and political parties across the spectrum.

If the continued spread of fascism and mindless violence in the cities is to be stopped, then the new government must reverse the capitalist economic policies and start in a direction that will ensure decent jobs for workers of the country with good living wages. By increasing the buying power of the workers, curtailing the obscene profits of the utility providers and properly taxing the super profits of the corporations, only then can problems in the health, education, housing and infrastructure be addressed. And they must immediately stop supporting the intensified settler colonial occupation in Palestine and genocide in Gaza which now has the risk of escalating in West Asia, and stop the imperialist aggression in Ukraine. The money wasted on these wars should be used to improve living standards of people in Britain. 

Continuing to allow the proliferation of the fascist ideology in society, and the racism from which it feeds, will necessitate people's involvement in anti-fascist forces and to resistance from the migrant workers. Britain could once again see a reassertion of “We will not go, we will fight back”, “We will not sit back, we will hit back”, “Self-defence is no offence”, “Black and White, unite and fight”; slogans of the anti-racist struggles in the late 1960s and early 1970s after Enoch Powell’s racist “Rivers of blood” speech and Margaret Thatcher’s claim of “being swamped by alien cultures”.  ILS will stand in solidarity with such an assertion. We encourage people to come together as a community, look out for each other and join any local groups opposing the fascists!

Written by Lekh Pall 

India Labour Solidarity – UK

7 August 2024