Divided and Angry

THEY SAY THAT in London you are never more than a few metres away from a rat. For the last couple of weeks in England, most of us have been only a few metres away from a rioter. From July 30 to August 5, there was violent disorder in urban centres all over the country, of a ferocity and scale we haven’t seen in recent times.

So, what was it all about? When asked, the rioters all said the same thing—“uncontrolled immigration”. Their anger was specifically directed at Muslims, and the targets of their destructive urges were mosques and hotels where asylum seekers were being housed.

Was it all spontaneous? Hard to tell. Some believe that disorder on such a scale could only have been wcoordinated. But by whom?

Some social media posts announced planned ‘protests’, but not all the riots occurred where online material seems to have intended them. And, apart from an apparent desire to send a message to the governing classes about immigration policy, it is difficult to see what the rioters, collectively, intended to accomplish. Looting was one obvious short-term aim, and there are pictures aplenty of people walking out of shops with their arms full of consumer goods.

Most commentators, and the government, simply blamed the “far right”. The slogans the rioters were shouting were definitely traceable to familiar far-right figures, such as ‘Tommy Robinson’ (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon), a longtime activist who led a street-level organisation called the English Defence League. The League is long gone, but ‘Tommy’ lives on in the online world, where he is now calling for the active deportation of non-white immigrants.

More respectable sections of the British right were quick to deny any active role in stirring up the trouble, but the leader of the Reform UK party, MP Nigel Farage, has been blamed for setting an atmosphere in which rioting could be seen as a justified response to the unwillingness of the authorities to give out information about the incident which, nominally, triggered the violence.

This was a mass stabbing, on July 29, in Southport, a small seaside town, in which three young girls were killed and eight others were seriously injured. It was immediately reported on social media that the suspect in police custody was a Muslim man who had recently crossed the English Channel as an illegal migrant, but this was not true. The police did not immediately disclose any information about the suspect because, at 17 years of age, he could not be identified. Later named Axel Muganwa Rudakubana, he was born in England, the son of legal migrants from Rwanda. There is no indication that he is a Muslim.

The riots are both proof of the social damage that populist messaging can do and, in an ironic twist, a validation of one of the main points that populists like to make —that the country is not divided vertically between parties over policy issues, but horizontally between the people, who are worthy, and the ruling elite, which is corrupt and out of touch

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But Nigel Farage did not wait for the orderly disclosure of information. Instead, he claimed the right to ask “legitimate questions”, and cast doubt on reassurances from the police that this was not a terrorist-related incident. He also speculated that information was being “withheld from us”. He then linked the incident in Southport with various other crimes recently committed by migrants.

A wave of outrage swept the country and, for nearly a week, crowds containing men, women and children came onto the streets to attack mosques and try to burn down hostels in which asylum seekers were sheltering. Multiple arrests were made, and those prepared to plead guilty were sentenced and incarcerated within hours.

Mercifully, the situation calmed down, without fatalities.

There is now a host of questions to ask about how any of this could have happened in modern Britain, and about what the long-term effects might be on government policy and social cohesion in the country.

There is certainly a causal link with economic deprivation. Six of the seven most serious riots occurred in areas measured as the most deprived in the country. But the riots were sup­posed to be against immigration, and these same areas have some of the fewest immigrants. Puzzling.

Misinformation also played a major role. People were told things that were not true, but were ready to believe them uncritically and felt justified in taking violent action. When interviewed by BBC radio, one rioter declared that he was not a racist and that what was really annoying him was not im­migration but the way that illegal immigrants were jumping the queue and thus undermining the fairness of the system. You would need a mineful of salt to take that statement at face value. Surely, no one tries to maim a policeman over such a slight form of injustice, experienced entirely by other people.

There can be little serious doubt that what we saw was the mobilisation of the most racist elements of British society, driven by the sense that they had to defend themselves and everything they held dear. The fact that the rioters eventually dispersed is a blessing, but the overall message they have left behind is about political and social failure on a grand scale.

Can anything be learnt about what is happening in the far corners of violent right-wing politics in Britain? Was there any strategy at play here?

What we are seeing may be nothing more than a craving in certain quarters for some kind of spontaneous ethnic cleansing—a hope that all the non-White immigrants in the country can somehow be killed or driven out by fear. But if we examine the role that social media played in the disorder, we may simply be looking at monetisation, in a new political context

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The racist right in Britain has long attempted to provoke violence in the hope that somehow this will stimulate a demand across bourgeois England for a party standing on an authoritarian platform. This was the strategy of the British National Party, which enjoyed some minor profile in the 2000s. But the avowed racists in British politics then disappeared back into an underworld of acronyms, toxic personal rivalries and football hooligans who refuse to grow up.

Liberal England was always comfortable with the idea that the far right was incapable of evolving a viable political strategy. Does that still hold true?

Rather than fantasies about electoral success, what we are seeing may be nothing more than a craving in certain quarters for some kind of spontaneous ethnic cleansing—a hope that all the non-white immigrants in the country can somehow be killed or driven out by fear. But if we examine the role that social media played in the disorder, we may simply be looking at monetisation, in a new political context.

The traditional bases of the two main political parties in Britain have recently undergone fundamental changes. The Labour Party has lost its appeal to much of what was once called the working class, becoming more metropolitan, multi­culturalist and internationalist. The Conservative Party, mean­while, has tried to broaden its appeal by being the party not so much of business but of Britishness. Both major parties have been led by politicians who have been labelled “populist” in their appeal; Jeremy Corbyn for Labour, and Boris Johnson for the Conservatives. Both were light on policy and high on emo­tion, hawking compelling visions detached from obstacles.

The truly populist leader to have emerged over the last dozen years has been Nigel Farage, who leads an avowedly populist party and is not afraid to attack every beam and rafter of the liberal establishment

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But the truly populist leader to have emerged over the last dozen years has been Nigel Farage, who leads an avowedly populist party and is not afraid to attack every beam and rafter of the liberal establishment. Both Johnson and Farage have been compared to Donald Trump, and the parallels have some validity—the willingness to offend, the aspiration to a kind of honesty in political speech that attempts to show up the negligence and self-interest of ‘the elite’.

Populism, in other words, is undeniably working in Britain. Johnson was very successful electorally (once, in 2019), and Farage has just managed to win five seats for his party at the recent general election.

The riots are thus both proof of the social damage that populist messaging can do and, in an ironic twist, a validation of one of the main points that populists like to make—that the country is not divided vertically between parties over policy is­sues, but horizontally between the people, who are worthy, and the ruling elite, which is corrupt and out of touch.

This analysis is very easily understood and resonates with the idea that mass immigration is a deliberate elite strategy designed to depress wages, recruit compliant voters, and erase the cultural character of Britain as we know it. This leads into more radical territory, where ideas of ‘The Great Replacement Theory’, or the sterilisation/manipulation of the population through vaccines, or the corralling of everyone into ‘15-minute cities’ can all make sense to people who are already feeling politically excluded and economically deprived.

Some Conservative politicians were beginning to mouth these kinds of ideas towards the end of their recently terminated period in government, but they were attempting to win votes, rather than to herd people onto the streets with petrol bombs. But what of the others who were also peddling such nightmare scenarios? Riots are supposed to be the voice of the unheard, but far-right person­alities with media platforms that reach millions are available all over the internet, so the idea that no one is voicing these kinds of opinions is not tenable. The miss­ing link here is money.

The Labour Party has lost its appeal to much of what was once called the working class. The Conservative Party, meanwhile, has tried to broaden its appeal by being the party of Britishness. Both major parties have been led by politicians who have been labelled ‘populist’ in their appeal; Jeremy Corbyn for Labour, and Boris Johnson for the Conservatives

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On a personal level, populist leaders tend to be narcissistic individuals who are more interested in attention than in the responsibility of governing. But the internet has now given them a way of becoming rich without ever getting near governmental office. Nigel Farage, populist brother number one, has just been revealed as the highest-earning MP in the current House of Commons, because of his extramural work in television and print media. He is not a voice crying in the wilderness; he, and others like him, are now enjoying real financial returns.

Some of the money comes upwards from the base via clicks and merchandising, a route ruthlessly exploited by Donald Trump. But there is also big money to be had from rich backers, who feel that the centre of gravity of political discussion can be moved further to the right by bankrolling fringe right-wing parties, of which Britain now has several, all with their pet millionaires.

Meanwhile, down below, the followers must remain content with the giddy glow of empowerment, reassured of their worth as true born patriots, and encouraged to avoid the befuddlement of the ‘fake’ mainstream media by ‘doing their own research’. These are people who do not need evidence to believe anything anymore. By using their ‘com­mon sense’ they know when they’re being lied to. So when they are told that the Southport stabbing was not the work of a Muslim, they simply refuse to believe it. When they are told that illegal migration to the country is a tiny percentage of the legal migration that our government sanctions, they simply refuse to believe it. When they are told that vaccines are safe, that 5G phone towers do not cause cancer, that condensation trails behind jet airliners are not full of mind-altering chemi­cals, or that most asylum seekers have valid claims, they sim­ply refuse to believe it. The blogger who first posted the idea that the Southport suspect was an illegal Muslim migrant on an MI5 watch list had a popular social media operation and a track record of disseminating anti-vax propaganda.

There are desperately tragic aspects to the 2024 riots. The first is that the incoherent anger they manifested is unlikely to change any of the realities of modern Britain. Migration will continue because the economy needs it, and all serious politicians recognise this to some degree. Mass migration is an international problem, and will not be solved by throwing bricks at a mosque.

The second is that populist politics disguises a deep and clear divide in British society, not between patriots and immigrants, but between leaders and followers. Populist leaders enjoy a life of luxury unimaginable to their followers, who struggle through on welfare. Those followers, sadly, will have to remain content with the catharsis of yelling racist insults at people they don’t know.

The rioters were preoccupied with the unfairness of a system of state benefits which they have been told gives mi­grants everything—accommodation, cars, phones, food, heat, and light—while giving them scarcely more than a pittance.

But the real injustice is that while their leaders get rich, they get jail time.

About The Author

Roderick Matthews

Roderick Matthews specialises in Indian history. He is the author of Jinnah vs Gandhi and Mountbatten and the Partition of British India