Racism and xenophobia are not 'legitimate concerns'.

 

During the 2010 election campaign, Prime Minister Gordon Brown was questioned by a member of the public about immigration. Shortly afterwards in his car Brown described her as “just a bigoted woman”. Unfortunately the microphones were still on, and his remarks became national news. He subsequently apologised, but of course it remained a very embarrassing moment in a campaign that Labour subsequently lost.

This, and similar incidents, are one reason why Labour politicians now go overboard to treat any public manifestation of antagonism or even hatred towards immigrants or asylum seekers as stemming from ‘legitimate concerns’. Another is of course the gradual tendency of working class constituencies (the ‘Red Wall’ in particular) to vote for the right rather than the left. A powerful Labour faction, Blue Labour, is all about trying to retain those voters by adopting right wing policies on social issues like immigration.

Labelling any concern about immigration as stemming from racism is certainly foolish. But equally suggesting that all expressions of hostility to asylum seekers must stem from legitimate concerns is just as foolish. Events over the last two weeks in the UK have illustrated where that mistaken tolerance can lead: hundreds of masked men dressed in black, some of whom have criminal records, blocking roads, harassing lifeboats bringing asylum seekers ashore and publishing the names and addresses of RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) volunteers who they call traitors. This is not the sign of a healthy society or of legitimate concerns about immigration or asylum. [1]

While it is never sensible to presume racism, it remains the case that a significant proportion of the UK population have racist beliefs. After a world war fought against fascist governments, politicians in many countries went out of their way to tackle overt racism and delegitimise politicians that openly attempted to attract racist or nationalist voters. We seem now to have turned that position on its head, where masked gangs involving former criminals are treated by sections of the media and politicians with kid gloves and in some cases sympathy.

In part this transition reflects the memory of WWII fading away, but it also reflects decisions taken by politicians and their media supporters on the right..When the political right encountered falling support for their newly embraced neoliberal economic policies, they switched to campaigning on social issues and that political firewall against far right political views began to dissolve. A charitable view would be that mainstream right wing parties didn’t realise what the consequences would be of their switch towards the politics of immigration and culture wars.

I have argued elsewhere that it is a mistake to see support for Reform and far right parties elsewhere as reflecting a rightward shift among the electorate. In the UK at least the population has become more socially liberal over time. Equally, while economic factors can both provide short term support for right wing populist parties and encourage hostility to minorities, I think economics cannot provide an explanation for the continuing core support for the far right. [2] Instead I think there has always been at least about a quarter of the population with pretty socially conservative views, but until the last few decades the political and media elite has either marginalised or disregarded this group.

What the mainstream right found was that once you start courting the racist and nationalist vote, that vote will demand more and political actors will meet that demand. In addition, those demands may be encouraged by parts of the media and wealthy political donors. The result in the UK has become a competition between the Conservatives, Reform and now Renew to attract the most socially conservative voters.

As David Aaronovitch points out, all three UK right wing parties with MPs in parliament are now committed to mass deportations if they gain power. All suggest we should join Russia and Belarus as the only European countries that are not part of the European Court of Human Rights, and violate international treaties like the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. This right wing competition for the racist vote will not end if either party, or a coalition between them, forms a government. A Conservative government in particular will be terrified of a repeat of 2024, and will therefore do all it can to court the racist and nationalist vote. The combined Conservative, Reform and Restore vote in some recent polls is around 47%.

With such competition, it was always foolish for Labour to think it should also try and appease this segment of the electorate by adopting far right policies and rhetoric on immigration and asylum. To do so sacrifices the basic humanity which is at the core of social liberalism. Talk of the legitimate concerns of some should always have been combined with condemnation of racism by others, together with appeals to recognise immigrants as fellow human beings who can contribute a great deal to society and viewing most asylum seekers as a particularly vulnerable group that deserves society's help. What we have now is one side generalising from individual criminal cases to suggest most asylum seekers are similar, and almost no one in the mainstream political class outlining the more realistic positive picture of successful integration. [3]

Unfortunately the consequences of that failure have become particularly apparent in the last two weeks. If some political parties continue to not only demonise particular groups of people, but also in their own interests dial up the supposed threat that those groups represent to the rest of society using words like ‘invasion’, then one consequence is to encourage intimidation and violence against those groups, and in some cases even those that show humanity towards these minorities (so called ‘traitors’). If you dehumanise groups, then you encourage others to treat them as less than human. [4]

Every time politicians and the media describe groups like those in black wearing masks as anti-migrant activists or protestors against asylum seekers, they are presuming the motive is legitimate concerns rather than racism or xenophobia. It doesn’t seem to bother the media that this is happening at a time when immigration numbers have fallen drastically and small boat numbers are also down. It is the equivalent of describing Moseley’s blackshirts in the 1930s as protesters with legitimate concerns about the government letting in too many Jewish refugees, when in reality the government refused entry to many more than it let in.

Not only is Labour’s passivity on recent developments morally wrong, it is also bad politics. The vast majority of voters in the UK dislike the idea of masked gangs blocking roads and intimidating the RNLI, and would credit any government that came down very hard against such gangs. Equally the spectacle of hecklers being beaten up at Reform’s party conference while audience members cheered and Farage laughed were horrific, and Labour politicians should be going out of their way to crucify Reform's Treasury spokesman Jenrick and others for their reaction to that. [5]

In a past post I talked about the dividing lines between right wing populism and fascism, and have suggested that violence is one sign that populism has become fascism. Reform are clearly right wing populists, as their intention to declare a state of emergency on gaining power together with their comments on the judiciary at their conference clearly show. The encouragement of violence against their opponents by their senior politicians suggests they have the potential to become a fascist party. Perhaps rather than call them populists we should call Reform proto-fascists. [6]

Reform certainly should be called far right rather than hard right. That the BBC fails to do so indicates they have lost their way in dealing with Reform. Part of that may be the result of Reform supporters or sympathisers within the organisation, or their well known paranoia towards the right wing press that has a very similar agenda to Reform. But part may be a misplaced fear of a Reform government. I say misplaced because the BBC would not survive under a Reform government, and probably not under a coalition involving Reform. Appeasement that cannot work is worse than useless.

What is required is that politicians and media in the political centre start to draw some lines, and when these lines are crossed to shout with all the power at its disposal. Stop calling organised gatherings of thugs in masks ‘protesters’ and start calling them ‘gangs’. Politicians need to demand that the right condemn the behaviour of these gangs [7] (and if the police don’t make arrests ask why [8]) Both politicians and the media need to attack Reform politicians when they make racist remarks or encourage violence.

As Stephen Bush says, believing that someone who is not white and is born abroad can never become a true citizen of a country or participate in our politics, or indeed that their children or grandchildren cannot become truly British, is not a legitimate concern about immigration. Nor is describing all immigrants as goat herders. Not only should senior Labour politicians and the media call those politicians making those statements out, they should demand the leaders of the party they represent do so too. Labour politicians and the media doing this would reflect public opinion, partly because many Reform and other right wing supporters share certain views and values with more liberal voters, like a dislike of violence and intimidation. Labour needs to both stop making it harder for immigrants to feel British, and to start acting more like an anti-fascist party.

[1] While this post is partly about the underlying reasons why this is happening now, the proximate cause may be funding from right wing groups in US, although of course that reflects similar underlying trends in that country.

[2] I also don’t think the scale of inward migration has that much explanatory power for various reasons. Areas of high immigration don’t show higher support for the far right, and many voters tend to say that immigration is a major national issue but not a concern in their area. Levels of immigration have fallen substantially over the last two years, yet it remains the issue that most concerns voters. The best predictor of concern about immigration is the newspaper people read (see also here).

[3] For example Sam Freedman points to the recent Pisa survey showing second generation immigrants outperforming their peers at school (see also here). But a mass deportation programme, together with continuing Conservative/Reform anti-Muslim rhetoric, is likely to reverse that positive record.

[4] There may be an analogy here between the tension between international or religious alliances and calling out ethnic cleansing.

[5] The Liberal Democrats to their credit called this out.

[6] Here proto-fascist would mean a group or party that shares many features of fascism and could therefore become a fascist party if they gained power. While populist is a widely used label I think it has two big disadvantages. The first is that even among academics its exact definition is disputed, particularly if the label is used to include left as well as right. The second is most people are unaware of these alternative academic definitions, and so the label is even less meaningful. What is pretty clear, however, is the similarity between right wing populists and past and current fascist governments. If Reform dislikes the label proto-fascist then they should stop trying to imitate everything the fascist government in the US is doing.

[7] The Conservative Police & Crime Commissioner for Hampshire appeared to justify the actions in Portsmouth. Reform’s Braverman expressed sympathy. Renew’s leader Lowe gave them his support. This in turn encourages sections of the media to describe the thugs as polite and motivated by a love of Britain rather than a hatred of foreigners, to describe the RNLI as becoming a taxi service for small boats, and to continue to spread lies about asylum seekers.

[8] As one person commented, it “seems the difference between ‘protestors’ and ‘terrorists’ is that protestors wear balaclavas while terrorists hold placards.”