I have never not been proud of my country, but there have been historic events and current unrest that has made it difficult with my daily international contacts to promote all the wonderful things the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has to offer.
My work brings me into contact with people across Europe, Asia, Australasia and North America and since Brexit, that was seen as a massive own goal by people overseas, our image and reputation has been damaged. This past week only reinforced an image of decline that the previous 9 years with 5 Prime Ministers, one referendum and three general elections had imprinted on the minds of many looking in from outside.
These most recent events have worried everyone, and yet the violence was a consequence of deliberate misinformation, lies and political opportunism by the likes of Farage and others with an agenda to disrupt and divide.
The very descriptions of the riots the mainstream media has used have themselves misled. These were not far right riots. Far right inspired yes, but most of those taking part wouldn’t know the difference between right, left or centre.
The local politicians who then pop up to claim this is all the work of outsiders, and their community is not like this, were also misleading, mostly themselves, because the people arrested have largely turned out to be local to the riots.
The reality is every community has a few extreme right-wing nutcases, and a much larger number of people, disgruntled, upset and failed by the system who for years now have been wound-up by irresponsible media outlets and politicians blaming foreigners and people of difference for the very real challenges they have to face.
Add in social media massaging, reinforcing and heightening prejudices and you have a tinder box waiting to be ignited, and all it took to light the fuse was a false name and back story circulating within minutes of the dastardly and tragic incidents in Southport.
While we have seen the culmination of years of cultivating discontent played out in mindless vandalism, violence against the police and people of colour, something amazing happened on Wednesday 7th August 2024.
Thousands took to the streets to support the police, defend places of worship, and institutions that serve the most vulnerable. No violence, no looting, no setting fire to anything, just numbers of good people saying not in our community.
Love, laugher and liberty overcame hate, prejudice and threats. This was our country at its best, and the country I cannot fail to be proud of.
But there is still an important lesson that is a long way from being learnt. That is how we build communities to be full of people prepared to defend them against the politics of prejudice and hate, and to do that we need a society of fewer extremes in levels of service provision, incomes and opportunities. This means those individuals and corporations with the broadest shoulders taking on a little more of the burden of taxation after decades of beneficial rates and avoidance loopholes.
* Adrian Sanders is Chair of Devon & Cornwall Liberal Democrats, and was the MP for Torbay from 1997 to 2015.
Follow @LibDemVoice on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Mystery at Witchend is Went the Day Well? and Seven White Gates is A Matter of Life and Death
The long role of the Jewish community in Liverpool
Labour's post-election (non-)honeymoon: The Week in Polls
September now
Farron photos
Joe Bourke
Peter Martin
Mick Taylor
Michael BG
Jennie
21 Comments
Absolutely
I worry about is those that did not attend or promote the riots, but who have also been taken in by the divisive rhetoric blaming migrants and refugees for all sorts of structural economic problems.
We have had free-market New Labour that facilitated immigration partially offsetting the UKs demographic problem while boosting the economy, but they failed to deliver long-term on infrastructure and housing.
So house prices and rental costs have distorted the economy, restricted opportunities, desposible income, and quality of life for many people.
After the public purse had been used to bail out private equity, those with wealth in tangible assest had a massive boost, while the left behind suffered the burden of austerity.
Then we had Tory party instability and Brexit which was a massive cry of discontent from the already left behind.
When COVID and war struck there was little left of anything for the poorest.
Hotels that were closed as business moved away where then used to house migrants, rarely does this occur in the wealthy areas. Many had their status confirmed as sink towns with little decent employment, is housing refugees as good as it gets for these towns?
Finally a general election, Reform get 14% of the vote for 5 MPs, Labour get in with a massive majority but they have yet to properly engage with the left behind…
Come July/August there is discontent about continuing austerity and the financial pressure put on pensioners.
The next general election is less then 5 years away. By then the Tories will have regrouped.
If the current government does not deliver for the left behind, Reform will become mainstream and/or merge back into the Conservatives.
The Liberal Democrats in parliament needs step up and become the brains for the Labour Party, by constructively challenging their ideas and making sure that they don’t do anything too stupid that will come back to bite the centre-left of politics in 5 years time.
“those individuals and corporations with the broadest shoulders taking on a little more of the burden of taxation ”
But if you ask “who benefits?” you can see that it’s to the benefit of precisely those people to have some of the working class attacking another part, rather than both realising that the people who are oppressing them are on the water in megayachts, not inflatable dinghys. So, no, the purpose of the riots is so those with the broadest shoulders can carry on taking the cake, and making everyone else fight for crumbs.
Finally a positive engagement in regards to the riots. My parents voted Reform basically because they were being pissed off by being told what they could and could not say . Or more likely the perception! They also think and this is a deeply rooted issue that the police treat some groups with kids gloves and others with the harshness of the law (Manchester Airport anyone). So what can we do to battle this perception?!
We should never let it appear that violence can achieve political results as this will merely encourage others to adopt such tactics. That said, politicians do need to be attentive to underlying issues and not merely ignore problems that are difficult.
@Dan
“They also think and this is a deeply rooted issue that the police treat some groups with kids gloves and others with the harshness of the law (Manchester Airport anyone). ”
Have you asked them for their evidence of this? If not why not please?
@ Mary,
“We should never let it appear that violence can achieve political results as this will merely encourage others to adopt such tactics.”
The suffragettes weren’t exactly that peaceful! I think they took the view that no ever got the franchise by voting for it.
Then there’s the politics of Ireland…..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffragette_bombing_and_arson_campaign
@Nonconform …..A wpc was assaulted and her nose broken – all caught on camera suspects arrested & on bail …… Man photographed trying to set light to a bus in in Leeds – caught on camera – still on bail….Maybe it’s got something to do with that ?
If this was last Sunday they’d be in jail ..
@MartinGray. It’s not the police that decide on bail, it’s the courts. Perhaps you should look at the press, especially the Mail and Express, for reasons why some people have the perceptions that they do.
@Mick….Perception is Mick is that there’s two tier policing …Given the overwhelming evidence of both those that were caught on film – it seems charges have been very slow – unlike situations that arose on Sunday …Call it what you will , but it’s hard not to be cynical given that evidence.
Might it be that the leaderships of the major political parties and the main stream media, not least the B B C, are colluding in conveying messages, overt and submerged, which have a lack of reasonable objectivity, analysis, and low emotion quotient, in their rather than our country’s interests?
The attached article provides some detail on this:
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2024/08/09/the-migration-issue-is-not-going-away/
@Peter Martin
Yes, there is no doubt that political violence can work. However, as someone who believes in democracy, I think it is preferable for politicians to be sensitive to underlying concerns so it does not have to explode into violence before those issues are addressed. That is also true to the issue of illegal immigration – we want our politicians to be sensitive to the underlying concerns and not allow the far right an opportunity to conflate the issue of illegal immigration with racism and, from that, advance their own horrible agenda.
It may well be after some riots but it will be before others.
The reality is that people can’t afford houses to buy or rent, can’t find doctors or dentists, can’t get a hospital appointment, and can’t afford to keep warm in winter.
They often get paid poverty wages, have to struggle with overloaded infrastructure including congested roads, overcrowded railway carriages, and sewage in the rivers and sea.
So who to blame? The Tories have gone but everyone knows that it won’t be any different under Labour.
So whether we like it or not it’s all going to be food and drink for the far right for the foreseeable future.
Its very easy to demolish the “Two-Tier Policing” crap, just look at the lists of those charged – they are mostly English surnames but a substantial minority are obviously South Asian/Muslim names. Quite clearly Non-white Rioters are being arrested & charged.
The question of how quickly offenders go through the Court process is related to the Danger of Riots being copied – that looks like common sense to me. The Leeds Rioters will probably have to wait 18 Months then go to Jail, I don’t see that as being treated with Kid Gloves.
Peter Martin,
what makes you say poor living standards is food and drink for the far right. “Bread, peace and Land” was Lenin’s mantra ‘Bread, peace and land’ connected peasants with workers in the Russian Revolution. If Refoem represents the far right compare their manifesto with the Greens – £90 billion of spending cuts compared with the greens £250 billion of increased spending.
@Paul….A wpc on active duty sustained a very significant facial injury – a fracture . The attack on the wpc was recorded and the suspect clearly identified & arrested ….If this was Sunday those responsible would have been handed down a significant custodial sentence..
Seems strange the prosecution service & courts can expedite some cases… Doesn’t that amount to a system thats acting on ‘different levels’….
Joe,
If the economic situation doesn’t improve, one scenario will be that the establishment parties coalesce into a new centre party who will try to hold the line against new parties of the left and the right. Rather like what we’ve seen and are seeing in France right now.
At one time the far right was the National Front, then it was the BNP, then UKIP, later the Brexit Party now it’s Reform. I suspect this will change again after Farage departs. As you say they are far more neoliberal than even the Tories which probably isn’t a winning formula as far as the working class are concerned.
However if they add a bit of socialism into the Nationalist mix you know what we’ll end up with!
Adrian is surely right. To build communities of people prepared to defend them against the politics of fear and hate, “to do that we need a society of fewer extremes in levels of service provision, incomes and opportunities.” Yes, and though Keir Starmer says he wants to build communities, we can see that on present trends it is the Liberal Democrats who will need to urge the new government to address the essential service provision, and the income disparities which keep the mass of our people still feeling the standard of living hasn’t risen for them.
“Love, laughter and liberty overcame hate, prejudice and threats”
Unfortunately it probably doesn’t do that for long. The Beatles famously sang “All you need is love”. Real world experience for us all it that it doesn’t pay the bills.
When people are struggling as they are they’ll need some hope that things will change for the better. We, as Katharine says, have to reduce income disparities. I’d add wealth too. Even young people who are earning what might be considered a good income cannot afford to have both a home and a family unless they have some additional wealth to support them.
The fundamental problem is the rank ordering of the different classes and racial groups within British society. Back in the “good old days” before race relations legislation, working class whites were happy to be placed a rank above working class ethnic minorities, who were readily “sent to the back of the bus”. Then along came the middle class liberals, who championed anti-racism, thereby promoting ethnic minorities. So poor whites felt, understandably, that they had sunk to the bottom. Understandably, they didn’t like that.
They couldn’t, of course, voice that explicitly as their complaint. So they found other ways to express their anger. Derisive insults against middle-class liberals. Cheers for the “stop the boats” propagandists, even though everybody knows that it would not stop the boats. Votes for Farage. And yes, rioting.
The riots have to be stopped. But the anger is understandable. No class of people deserve to sink to the bottom and get pilloried by the better-off. That has been the fate of ethnic minorities for a long time. It is now also the fate of the poor uneducated whites.
Above all, they want to be listened to with some sort of respect. Telling them, de haut en bas, what they ought to want, won’t work.