There’s a popular image of Britain as a haven of multiculturalism and tolerance. This past weekend shattered that image for those who still believed in it.
Riots broke out across the UK, planned and fueled by far-right groups, with reports from Liverpool of far-right rioters setting fire to a library and food bank, and the burning of a hotel housing migrants in Rotherham. The scenes have been heartbreaking — but for Black and Asian Britons, we’ve been unsurprised by the forceful presence of racists across the country. For days, there had been a wave of Islamophobia, xenophobia, and racism stirred up by leaders of racist groups, after it was falsely claimed that the perpetrator of an attack on little girls in Southport last week was Muslim or an undocumented immigrant, spread by right-wing figures like Andrew Tate.
Frankly, how Britain could house such bigotry from white politicians and media commentators has been incredibly frustrating. Yvette Cooper, Labour’s home secretary, was ready to put the “thuggish minority” in prison and said that these people “did not speak Britain; they don’t share British values.” To the right of the political sphere, the condemnation of the violence was less about the racist sentiment behind the riots and more about the harm done to police officers. Nigel Farage, leader of the Reform Party UK, formerly the Brexit Party, which explicitly spouts anti-immigrant rhetoric, expressed his shock, alongside deputy party leader Richard Tice, in comments on Twitter/X, revealing their ignorance of the way people of color live in this country under the threat of racial hatred. When asked about motivation, these commentators claim to have a genuine concern about multiculturalism and immigration. It is insulting to deny the truth. But this, too, is unsurprising, for chronic denial of racism is characteristic of Britain.
Britain is often described as a country where racism is subtle: We don’t have KKK rallies and lynch mobs; we have microaggressions wrapped in polite debate. But this conceals the reality. There is a legacy of subjugation of Black and brown people stemming from the 1600s when Britain began their colonization of three-quarters of the globe. There is in British culture and politics an entrenched denial of racism as well as racist riots and incidents passed off as pockets of disorder by small groups of bigoted individuals.
To call out racism and Islamophobia by name means having to reckon with the complicity of politicians in stirring it up. Over the past decade, figures on the right have appeared on news shows and social media spouting talking points framing their racism and xenophobia as moderate concern for the country. A Conservative party donor can say Diane Abbott, the first Black woman in the British Parliament, “should be shot” and that she makes him want to “hate all Black women.” For days, commentators and politicians debated whether we could really call it racist — or was it just bad manners. Even Kemi Badenoch, a notable Black woman MP in the Tory party, dismissed the remarks later as “‘trivia” after initially acknowledging that the comment was racist. To exist as a person of color or any marginalized group in the UK is to exist in a perpetual state of gaslighting.
White supremacist violence is nothing new in Britain. Race riots in the 20th century targeted working communities of color across the UK, in London, Birmingham, Cardiff, Liverpool, and more. Groups like the National Front were emboldened by politicians such as Enoch Powell and Oswald Mosely, who were notorious for their racist and anti-immigration sentiment that was given a platform by the media with their inflammatory rhetoric, stirring up violence against Black and Asian people across the country.
What has changed? The “hostile environment,” a term used by former prime minister and home secretary Theresa May to describe policies that make living in the UK harder for undocumented immigrants and whipped up by the Conservative Home Office, didn’t stop with going after recent immigrants and refugees. It also resulted in deporting elderly Caribbean people who had come to the UK in the 1950s and '60s at Britain's invitation. The “Stop the Boats” policy used by former PM Rishi Sunak, which involves heavy policing of the English Channel and beaches, has continued under the Labour government, stoking fears of a boat-borne immigrant invasion of Britain and putting immigrants at high risk. Rather than offering compassion or attempting to construct an immigration strategy that would adequately support asylum-seekers, the policy drummed up xenophobia that tapped into the racism that has been ignored in public discourse.
The opposition now in power was no better. Rather than actively challenging any of the Tories' insane culture wars talking points, the Labour Party haphazardly leaned into the talking points, giving them further legitimacy. Rather than combatting the clear xenophobia, Labour Party leader Keir Starmer singled out Bangladesh as an example of where more people should be deported. It is a strange comment to make when attempting to show you’re the party of tolerance. However, it demonstrates that Labour saw favor in trying to create a more palatable version of the Conservatives' immigration policies to gain votes, regardless of the feelings of marginalized communities.
When politicians deny that structural racism and bigotry still exist, it becomes a way to legitimize their offensive sentiments. Far-right figureheads like Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson (legal name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) can jump on “concerns” about immigration to whip up their followers with impunity. We are a nation that would rather hear out racists than listen to and protect the communities they demonize.
The riots are a result of years of bad-faith engagement to solve societal ills, blaming immigrants, people of color, and Muslims for not integrating instead of confronting those who exclude and attack anyone who doesn't fit their narrow definition of Britishness. When those at the very top normalize lukewarm racism and Islamophobia, it emboldens people to commit hate crimes, to attack those they view as other because they have been singled out as other. There has been a clear message: No matter how long you have lived here, even if you were born here, or how much money you have as long as you’re not white you’re not really British.
On August 7, there were threats of over 100 more gatherings planned. Thankfully, those riots did not manifest and instead, there was an outpouring of solidarity and support from communities coming together to counterprotest racism. But that doesn’t remove the fear we feel. Unless Britain reflects and confronts the racism that is at the heart of every part of this country, moments of solidarity mean little. This horrific violence will pop up every few years, keeping the country a terrifying place for marginalized people. Britain has a racism problem and it is time to sit back and reflect on the part everyone – from the top to the idiots burning down a library – plays in that problem.
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