Nadia Whittome on… the far right

Last month we witnessed something that I was hoping to never see in my lifetime. Across the country, far right thugs took to the streets in their thousands, seeking to intimidate, threaten and physically hurt minority communities. Shops owned by people of colour were looted. Cars were set on fire. Muslims were particularly targeted, with attacks on mosques and disgusting Islamophobic chants shouted in the streets. In Rotherham, a mob tried to torch a hotel housing asylum seekers, terrorising and endangering the lives of more than a hundred people inside.

What provided a spark for the violence was a horrific tragedy in Southport on 29 of July, where eleven children and two adults were stabbed at a dance class. Three little girls lost their lives as a result. Rumours spread quickly that the perpetrator was a Muslim asylum seeker, and although it soon emerged that the suspect was a British-born Christian teenager, the facts didn’t matter for those determined to organise Islamophobic riots.

In Nottingham, the events of late July and early August brought back painful memories. Last summer, we also lost three much-loved members of our community, and three more people were injured in a senseless attack. Also then, the far right attempted to exploit this horrendous crime to spread racism. It was incredibly moving and admirable to then hear the victims’ families speak out against hate and appeal for unity. This time too, we heard parents of the murdered children condemn the extremists and call for peace. It speaks volumes about their character that, in their immense grief, this was the message they wanted to send.

It’s also worth noting that the far right had been organising even before the Southport attack. Two days before the tragic events occurred, Tommy Robinson led a demonstration in London that attracted tens of thousands of people. Fascists didn’t need a new reason to take to the streets, only a convenient excuse. It’s beyond shameful that they chose to insult the victims and their loved ones by claiming to speak on their behalf.

While the rioting has now stopped, and prisons are filling up with its participants, the far right threat hasn’t gone away. The real work starts now: not only to prevent more thuggery on our streets, but also root out the sickening ideology that drove it.

Racist violence doesn’t emerge out of nowhere. It’s true that disinformation and conspiracy theories can easily spread online, and social media companies aren’t doing enough to prevent it. However, it would be simplistic to put the blame solely on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) or TikTok, when you don’t need to log on to be inundated with messages of hate. It’s often enough to turn on the TV, or glance on the front pages of newspapers in your local supermarket. Billionaire media moguls know that fear and controversy sell, and often don’t care which minority they endanger in the pursuit of profit. They, too, must be held accountable for their actions.

It’s also inaccurate, and deeply offensive, to describe racism as a working class phenomenon. The rot starts from the top. For years, we’ve heard fabulously rich politicians spew hate before jumping on a private jet. We’ve heard Eton-educated multi-millionaire Boris Johnson describe Muslim women as ‘letterboxes,’ and call black people ‘piccaninnies’ on the pages of the Telegraph. Nigel Farage, who gets paid nearly £1.2 million a year by GB News, has built an entire career on scapegoating immigrants. Our richest-ever Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, made attacking refugees (and trans people) a central part of his message, while the rest of the country was trying to survive a devastating cost of living crisis. Even Tommy Robinson writes his anti-migrant posts from a billionaire’s villa in Spain, where he migrated four years ago.

The working class is diverse. The average British worker has more in common with their Nigerian or Pakistani colleagues, than they do with any of the men mentioned above. It’s the rich and powerful who have an interest in keeping working people divided. If workers are convinced that foreigners are pushing down wages, they won’t join a union with them and organise for higher pay. If people believe that immigrants take all the social housing (untrue: 90% of new lets go to UK nationals), they won’t blame governments that have sold it off and failed to build more, resulting in a loss of more than 260,000 homes in a decade. The super-rich prefer white working class people to be more angry about their black and brown neighbours, than about an economic system that allows a few to amass unimaginable wealth at the expense of the many. By exploiting people’s frustrations and anxieties, the far right helps perpetuate that injustice.

Fortunately, most people in Nottingham understand this. During those difficult days, when many Muslims, migrants and people of colour were scared to leave their homes, it was so inspiring to see our community come together to resist hate. The quickly organised counter-protests many times outnumbered the far right, and showed our city at its best. 

As we come to terms with the awful events of recent weeks, let’s recommit to working together to stamp out racism in all its forms. Let’s make it clear, in case anyone has any doubts, that people of all faiths and backgrounds will always be welcome in our city. And if the far right ever dares to gather here again, it will, once more, be humiliated.

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