Sikh men attacked by racists in Wolverhampton - racism and the far right bebeing fuelled by Starmer's anti-migrant policies and emulation of Enoch Powell

An ILS Statement - 21/08/25

A video has gone viral globally of two elderly Sikh gentlemen being brutally assaulted by 3 white men at a taxi stand in Wolverhampton. We extend our solidarity to the men who were assaulted, their families and all those affected by these traumatic scenes in a climate of escalating racism. West Midlands Police have arrested three men on suspicion of racially aggravated assault and Sikh Federation (UK) have spoken to those who were attacked who confirm that racist language - specifically the P word - was used during the attack. Sikh Federation (UK) denounced the police response, suggesting that it was delayed, only happening after the video went viral. They also rightly pointed to the government's role in stirring up racism particularly through anti-migrant narratives. We echo this - wilfully racist policy and narratives from the government and media (both state and corporate) are ultimately responsible for this attack and the wider violence against Asian people, Black people and asylum seekers.

This appears to have been yet another instance of the once-widespread violent "P*ki-bashing" hobby of British white supremacists, which - despite the specific slur used - terrorised South Asians of any background across the country, very much including Sikhs and Punjabis. We saw widespread pogroms last year, again stoked by government rhetoric and policy - now we are seeing the Reform Party's growth and fascist groups and their supporters escalating their violent campaigning (successfully in Epping's case) against temporary accommodation hotels for asylum seekers across the country. Elsewhere in the West Midlands, in South Birmingham, local groups supported by national and international far right networks are currently putting up the St George's flag and the Union Jack (AKA the Butcher's Apron) in what they are calling "Operation Raise the Colours".  This drive by these elements has explicitly been about migration and race so this has sparked intense debate locally. The P word's widespread revival in last year's pogroms shows that the word, and the violence linked with it, has been waiting to burst out of the racist subconscious. Notably the term ("f*** P*kis") was even sprayed onto a hotel serving as temporary asylum seeker accommodation in Tamworth during last year's violence (pic below). Just as prior waves of such racist violence in the streets have been fanned by demagoguery and dog whistles by the media and political class - especially Enoch Powell's infamous "Rivers of Blood" speech - the same has now been done by Starmer and his "island of strangers" speech.

The government's response to this has just been to legitimise this racism by passing even more historic anti-migrant legislation, bragging about conducting immigration raids in our communities and otherwise wandering to the far right. Indeed the Hostile Environment - with all the harm it perpetrates against South Asians broadly - itself was birthed by this Labour Party's Liam Byrne. The 1968 Commonwealth Immigrants Act, for one example, was passed - by the Labour Party - specifically due to racist concerns about too many East African Indians coming to Britain - and declassified cabinet files now confirm the law was aimed specifically at curbing the entry of "coloured immigrants". Much of British immigration law has been shaped through processes of feedback between imperialism, racist panics over specific waves of migration and a shifting definition of "citizen". So, we must resist internalising immigration law as somehow natural or inherent. 

It is also important to note that Islamaphobia has risen and become more central to white supremacist racism following the Global War on Terror. Unfortunately this has been a trend many Indians at home and in diaspora have been too keen to help fuel. Islamaphobia is being ramped up globally by an alliance of US-led imperialism, Zionism and Hindutva - and other groups, particularly Sikhs, have regularly been victims of racialised Islamaphobia. This has been seen in various racist attacks on Sikhs following 9/11, attacks on gurdwaras after 7/7 or the 2015 attempted beheading of Dr Sarandev Bhambra by a neo-Nazi following the killing of Lee Rigby. However, we don't mean to suggest racist violence against Sikhs and Punjabis in Britain is rooted only in misplaced Islamaphobia. We know this from the long history of racist discrimination across Britain as evidenced by Gurdip Singh Chaggar and Blair Peach's murders, or the strength of white supremacist politics in Smethwick that led to Malcolm X's famous visit there and his meeting with the Indian Workers Association. Widespread discrimination and racist violence against South Asian and Caribbean populations through the 60s, 70s and 80s is well documented, as is community resistance against it. Communities targeted by this have always resisted it and still do in various ways. Particularly in the past there were groups like Indian Workers Associations and similar organisations of Kashmiris, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Asian Youth Movements and similar organisations for Carribbean communities. These organisations at their best were rooted in working class politics, a genuine anti-racism, resisted our division into separate distinct ethnic minorities, and challenged imperialism and capitalism. It seems this kind of wide anti-racist, anti-imperialist solidarity rooted in class politics is exactly what is needed in today's Britain.

The so-called Labour government is neglecting issues of cost of living, employment and dignified life particularly in towns of the Midlands and North still reeling from the effects of Thatcher's "managed decline". Instead of offering genuine socialist alternatives, they fan the flames of hate and ramp up racist policies - pandering to the widespread claims that immigration, rather than landlordism, wealth inequality, privatisation, underfunding of public services - is responsible for any and all issues people feel. The media has been only too willing to encourage hateful and ignorant narratives. This is why this latest attack does come in a recent context of increasing street and state racism in Britain targeting all non-white communities. The number of different racist attacks up and down the country in the last two years targeting individuals from various backgrounds, such as Bhim Kohli killed in Leicester or the stabbing of an Eritrean refugee by a Nazi in Worcester, is too long to list. Last summer, alongside terror attacks at hotels and mosques, we saw "race checkpoints" of white individuals checking the race of drivers before assaulting people and burning cars in North Yorkshire, Middlesbrough and similar racial assaults all over Britain. 

However, we encourage people to see these street vigilante racists as not so different from Home Office vans which harass non-white communities in an effort to round up individuals from the most exploited sections of the working class under racial capitalism. In fact, it was two Punjabi men who were known in the community due to their volunteering at the local gurdwara who were the detainees in the van at the famous Kenmure Street successful antiraids action in Glasgow. When the Home Office's racist raids targeted presumably Sikh Punjabis, it was a broad community demonstration by people of all faiths and none that got them released. We acknowledge the efforts of anti-raids groups across the country to build on this beautiful show of class unity to bring people of various backgrounds together to tackle racial capitalism and white supremacy at its roots.