Lib Dem Home Affairs spokesperson Alistair Carmichael had some wise things to say about the riots that have plagued the country over the past two weeks.
He compared what happened here to the events of January 6 when MAGA types invaded the Capitol as some Republicans in Congress tried to steal the 2020 election from its rightful winner, Joe Biden.
Today the man who encouraged and stood to benefit from that political violence, if it had succeeded, is an even bet to be elected as President of the United States.
As the UK faces down our own wave of misinformation-fuelled rioting, albeit less directly targeted at our democratic institutions, we must learn the lesson from our American cousins – and refuse any attempt to normalise political violence.
He warned that we need to tackle the root causes of this violence:
In the short term, the problem may primarily be a matter of policing and the courts, but in the long term, we need political solutions to the issues thrown up by these riots. Violence and threats of violence cannot become normalised in the way that they increasingly have been in the United States.
He warned that we can’t assume that all our MPs would necessarily condemn the violence and challenged them to do so:
With prominent politicians in our own country – indeed even Conservative leadership candidates – endorsing Mr Trump, it should be clear that we cannot take the previous consensus against political violence and disinformation campaigns for granted.
He had a bleak warning if we fail to deal with this properly:
Whether it’s Tommy Robinson from his sun lounger in Cyprus or the increasingly deranged Elon Musk on X/Twitter, those who wish to push a narrative of inevitable civil conflict are not acting in good faith – and they are putting the stability of our democracy at risk.
The bedrock of liberal democracy is the belief that we resolve our differences in debate and at the ballot box, rather than through violence. Democracy, however, is only ever as strong as the people who uphold it. If we cannot face down political violence and those who would seek to normalise it, then America’s present may be our future before too long.
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16 Comments
BACKING THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY – AT EVERY LEVEL BEWARE OF THE FAR AND FARISH RIGHT WING. FARAGE AND REFORM REMIND ME OF BERLIN 1933 !
“The bedrock of liberal democracy is the belief that we resolve our differences in debate and at the ballot box, rather than through violence”…
We had a GE last month & Reform had a higher vote share than us …
Farage has condemned the violence . @ Roger to equate that to 1930’s Germany is a gross misrepresentation….If you dislike some ones politics you need to come up with better ideas & policies – if you think the majority of the British public want the current levels of immigration to be maintained then your ill informed – and pointing that out is not racist …
” if you think the majority of the British public want the current levels of immigration to be maintained then your ill informed ”
Maybe you are, Martin.
“an analysis of the UK public’s view on immigration from an analysis of the World Values Survey done by King’s College, London” shows that over 50% think the impact of immigrants on the UK is good or very good. https://radixuk.org/opinion/immigration-protest-and-the-uk-public/
As many immigrants are working in the NHS and care sectors that is unsurprising. And those relatively few arriving via the small boats include many who are refugees from various problems in their native countries.
@Jenny ….You surely don’t mean that adding a city the size of Bristol to the population every year is a vote winner ? ….Maybe parties should put that front page on their manifestos and see what the outcome would be ….Labour will only get this one chance to deal with the issue – as promised last month at the polls ….
Immigration has remained in the top 3 concerns of voters for a considerable time & it’s not because the public are wanting more …
As I said before:
https://www.libdemvoice.org/after-the-riots-75831.html#comment-594339
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. 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.
That does not justify rioting, but it does tell us something about how to prevent it.
Immigration – It’s complicated. Of course there are economic benefits which many people understand and appreciate. But there is also competition – for resources like housing, and probably more importantly, for social status. The losers don’t like it. We should not feel comfortable about creating losers, irrespective of their colour.
Could it possibly be the multitude of moral panic fronts pages in the Daily Mail on the immigration issue over the last couple of decades?
The current net migration rate is about 150,000 p.a. Bristol has a population of 472,500. To take its share, Bristol would need to accomodate 10,000 imigrants a year.
There is a particularly English view that the working classes are at the bottom of the social pyramid which needs to change.
It’s the working class which keeps everything going. If there’s a problem with your house or car, or there are pot holes in the road, or the electricity supply fails, they probably aren’t going to be fixed by someone wearing a suit and tie.
So a first step towards having a less disgruntled working class is for the rest of society to allow the respect to everyone that is deserved. That doesn’t actually cost anything!
We have a society in which, taking out immigration, there would be a declining population. We need a policy which faces the need to have people to do the work which we older people cannot do.
Sure, the Mail and the Right nastily stir the pot over immigration and make things worse. But if you believe that everything would be fine if only the Mail and the Right would shut up, you are deluding yourself. And self-delusion means not tackling problems well.
Net migration is not 150,000. In 2023 it was 685,000, though this was probably a one-off spike. The ONS estimates an average long-term level of 315,000 by 2028. Yes we need immigrants. But what people think about that is a class issue. To the middle class, the Polish plumber is a godsend who sorts out their plumbing leaks. To the working class, the Polish plumber has taken their work away and left them on benefits.
https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/long-term-international-migration-flows-to-and-from-the-uk/
The numbers are interesting. (All approx)
Net immigration in 2023 was 700k
Of which 100k were recruited for Heallth & Social Care work,
250k were on student visas
and 30k arrived in small boats.
The remainder, presumably were given visas for other priority work.
So if we wanted to reduce immigration, the 30k on small boats, many of whom are genuine refugees, would give less than a 5% reduction.
The remaining 670k is where one would focus attention – and I’m not convinced the voters would like the results.
If there was no Health/ Social Care immigration, clearly there would either be a shortage of staff in these areas, or the scope of both would need to be reduced, or taxes would need to go up to fund increased wages till sufficient Brits were willing to take the jobs on.
If the 250k student visas were all cancelled, as they mostly pay considerably more than UK students for their university courses, there would be a severe impact on university funding – so either many universitys would go bankrupt, or the UK student fees (and loans) would need to go up considrably – or taxes increased to subsidise the universitys directly.
I suspect similar considerations would apply to the remaining 300k or so.
While the small boat arrivals are very visible, it would be straightforward to set up processing for asylum applications in France, and then they could travel on a normal ferry if successful.
Jenny, you’re right, of course. There is little scope for reducing immigration without causing a lot of problems in health, social care, and the universities. A lot of people – especially the middle class – would be hurt by that. So, successive governments have talked the tough talk on cutting immigration, while not really trying very hard to walk the walk.
Hence our growing population, and growing pressures on housing, schools and jobs, which especially hurt the working class. This enables Farage to pose as the champion of the white working class underdog.
To be clear, the biggest real losers have been the Muslim and ethnic minority populations, who have lived in fear throughout the riots. Ending the riots effectively, which could mean using the carrot as well as the stick, would be the best way to help our beleaguered ethnic minorities.
It’s not easy to explain the “carrot”, but here’s an example. Don’t be Hillary Clinton. Don’t go calling poor white folk “a basket of deplorables”!
@Jenny
> Net immigration in 2023 was 700k
> 250k were on student visas
we know (now) that 97% of students return from whence they came, which
the Home Office conveniently ignored, so is the 250k really Net, or is the net 3% of that?
(I do believe that housing and services have to be provided for additional population. Which the neo-libs will tell us cannot be afforded. Which cannot be true.)
Whilst I agree that violence and disinformation can play no part in our political life, it is also incumbant on all those involved in the latter to do all they can to ensure our society does not marginalise minorities or create divisions that might contribute to the former.
@Peter. It’s actually 35% of students who remain in the UK after their course finishes (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/articles/visajourneysandstudentoutcomes/2021-11-29). Since a student is living here for up to 3-4 years, it seems to me quite correct to include arriving students in immigration figures, balanced by that those who leave will add to the emigration figures at the end of their courses.
It’s not that we can’t afford housing etc: It’s more that the required housing simply isn’t there: We don’t even have enough houses to adequately house the people who already live in the UK, and any increase in population rather obviously exacerbates that problem.
@Jenny: Regarding the Kings College survey you quoted: Believing that the impact of immigrants is good does not equate to wanting the current high level of immigration to continue. I’m sure there are many people who believe (as I do) that immigration is in principle usually a good thing, but is currently far too high.