The beginning of August was a heated period in the UK (on this occasion not attributable to climate change). A weekend-long spree of violence across several towns and cities, mainly in the North of England, saw rioters attempt to set fire to hotels housing asylum-seekers and to a mosque, attack police with bricks, set up ‘checkpoints’ where non-white drivers were stopped, and abuse Muslim women by stripping off their hijabs. The pretext for these riots was misinformation about the identity of the perpetrator of a horrendous knife attack in the city of Southport which killed three young girls. As it happens, the recently-turned-18 year old man was born in Wales to Rwandan Christian parents.
On Monday morning, a message identifying offices of refugee and migrant support groups and law firms as potential targets for a concerted attack was circulated, prompting communities throughout the UK to congregate in large numbers to fend off potential attacks. Many of those prosecuted so far have been charged with violent disorder, which carries a maximum sentence of five years. The clampdown on rioters prompted a claim that it supposedly reflects ‘two tier policing’: lenient on some, harsh on other. Yet, just a week before the August riots, several ‘Just Stop Oil’ activists were sentenced to 5 years’ imprisonment for holding a zoom planning meeting for blocking the M25. Indeed the last time the UK experienced mass riots, in the summer of 2011, a certain Keir Starmer, now Prime Minister, was Director of Public Prosecutions. Those riots were prompted by the killing of a black man, Mark Duggan, by the police; on that occasion, most of those arrested, convicted, and sentenced to lengthy prison sentences were black and minority ethnic (BAME).
Rioters attacked first generation migrants, including refugees and asylum-seekers; yet they also attacked BAME persons born and bred in Britain. In so doing, they exhibited a toxic conflation of three distinct phenomena: first, hostility towards asylum-seekers (arguably boosted by Rishi Sunak’s ‘stop the boats’ campaign). Second, anxieties around ‘mass migration’: net migration numbers have indeed peaked in 2023, partly due to a post-Covid labour shortage correction, to an increase in the number of international students, and to protection schemes for Ukrainians and BNOs arriving from Hong Kong. Third, longstanding disavowal of the effects of prior migration, a tension that can be traced back to Enoch Powell’s infamous ‘rivers of blood’ speech.
Ultimately, the riots were catalysed by misinformation. But what difference would it make if the Southport attacker was a Muslim, in a country that is home to 70 million people, where Muslims account for 6.5% of the population? It should have made no difference at all. Indeed it is the success of modern Britain that the current government sees a Muslim Lord Chancellor, Shabana Mahmood MP, and a Jewish Solicitor General, Sarah Sackman MP, working together on responses to these riots.
‘Reform UK’ voters notwithstanding, overwhelmingly, UK residents not only strongly reject the use of violence, but also say that rioters do not represent them. Nevertheless, the absence from the wider public discourse of an unashamedly pro-immigration narrative is notable. Such narrative would include an acknowledgement that, given Britain’s aging population, its health and care sector would collapse without the skilled migrants that work in it; that migrants, overall, are a net economic benefit to society, especially given they tend to be working age and are either not entitled to claim welfare benefits or do not claim them; that, given current demographic trajectories, the need for working age migrants is only likely to increase; and that migration enriches British society – that diversity is a strength, not a weakness.
One of the most short-sighted policies that the outgoing government implemented – and which Labour has not hitherto reversed – is to deny international postgraduate students on one year degrees the ability to bring their family with them: this has already led to a significant drop in applications. Given how dependent our universities are on international students, whose fees effectively cross-subsidise ‘home’ students, this can be the death knell for many university departments if not for entire institutions. Top international students come to the UK not only because they deem its universities to be world class, but because they believe they would be welcomed here, and the ‘soft power’ of students returning to their home countries has a lasting effect. One in four world leaders studied at a UK university. The net migration numbers obsession, dating back to Cameron’s (broken) promises, has now actively harmed the UK’s higher education sector.
All of this is not to deny that the grievances many Britons hold are real: rising house prices and rental costs have restricted opportunities, disposable income, and quality of life; NHS waiting lists have life-crippling effects; transport and other infrastructure especially in northern areas is often outdated, literally Victorian, and needs serious investing; and I have not even mentioned the ‘B’ word (Brexit) and its adverse impact on trade, services, and the wider economy. None of these genuine challenges are caused by migration: indeed one is more likely to be treated by a migrant in the health service than to see a migrant ahead of them in the queue for treatment. The riots therefore provide an opportunity to turn the page on a toxic and divisive anti-immigration discourse: if it is seized, it would offer a hopeful lesson to other countries that are facing similar challenges. The Labour government seems to have met the law enforcement test in its response to the riots: whether it is willing and able to meet the rather more challenging discursive one remains to be seen.
* Dr. Ruvi Ziegler is Associate Professor in International Refugee Law at the University of Reading. He is an Advisory Council member of Liberal Democrats for Seekers of Sanctuary.
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16 Comments
“The grievances are real…” Yes, and probably the government will be unable or unwilling to do much about any of them. In which case it’s always useful to have a scapegoat for the hard-of-thinking to blame, rather than those who are actually taking the cake.
A typically insightful and well balanced article from Ruvi, but I wonder if he rather underplays the contribution to the riots made by poverty and hopelessness about bridging the growing wealth gap in the UK. Fear of immigrants is easily stirred up by unscrupulous politicians and social media pundits, and no doubt some people really are to some degree frightened of foreigners for some reason, but some of the racists I’ve spoken to seem to be affected more by envy than fear. Some of that would start to go away if we prioritised reversing the growth in the wealth gap.
I agree with what Ruvi says, but we also need to build on the glimmers of hope arising from the ashes that have been left by the riots.
I was at a meeting last night of “No to Hassockfield” (a campaign against a women’s immigration detention centre in the North East) and we felt that the general uprising of support for those being demonised was something to be built on, and hopefully the Government will see that what most people in the UK want is to be a tolerant and accepting society.
Many of those out standing in solidarity against racism and hatred were not the “usual suspects” but ordinary people in the community who were angry about the rioters and their supposed cause. one of the people at the meeting was from oxford (we meet by zoom!) who said that was very much the case there.
To make a comment to @andy daer, whilst I am sure that poverty and lack of hope is behind some of the rioters there are pics of some of those imprisoned in our local papers and social media pointing out that they have lost good jobs whilst NF is lounging in luxury and raking in the money.
Agree with most of this. Having had the honour of working alongside supposedly “unskilled” care workers from Poland (pre Brexit), India, Bangladesh and the Philippines, I am humbled by the kindness of “strangers” to our frail and elderly. However there is no evidence that our care sector would “collapse” without migrants.
Anyone reading the comment sections of the Mail and Express can have no doubt, from their defence of the rioters, of Farage and Robinson, that there is an overlying and basic reason for the instigation of the ‘disturbances’…RACISM!
Agree with much of the article, but denying that rising house prices and rental costs are caused at least in part by immigration seems to me to be, not living in the real World. Over the last 20 years, the UK population has increased by about 10 million. That increase is very largely because of net migration. Depending how many people you put in each house, those people might need about 3 million homes to live in. Simple laws of supply and demand tell you that will cause house prices and rents to rise.
A sensible debate about immigration requires that we recognise both the advantages AND the disadvantages of migration – we can’t just keep blindly pretending that there are no disadvantages.
Exactly Simon ..
Reform had a higher percentage of poll share than us – and finished 2nd in 98 labour constituencies, in many of those we got wiped out . People are rightly asking how many is too many – how can this be sustained across those towns that have seen a disproportionate dispersal of asylum seekers in their communities…
re housing, the answer is about building more, not saying no room for anyone else. Also the building trade uses a lot of people who have migrated here.
Where I live the accommodation is cheap street houses with bad landlords that most people here do not, for good reason, want to live in.
Thanks for these considered responses.
Re Ruth’s comment, recent NHS data shows that across all NHS staff in England (1.4 million), more than 17 per cent (264,815) are from overseas. Percentages for nurses are much higher – nearly 27 per cent of NHS nurses are from outside the UK (99,856 of the 372,605 nurses and health visitors recorded). Given current pressures/waiting lists with existing staff, I think it is fair to suggest that without migrants the health and care sector would indeed collapse.
As per Simon R’s comment concerning housing, the fact that net migration means more housing is needed does not suggest that migration causes the housing crisis. Rather it is the fact that successive governments failed to build houses. Other countries with net migration such as Germany do not have it as badly. More generally, the migrant divided namely the net economic gain of migration for the exchequer, should have been utilised for investment in infrastructure. It is not too late to do so. Deference to Reform and their xenophobia disguised by ‘genuine concerns’ won’t do.
Re Ruvi’s comment that nearly 27% of NHS nurses are from outside the EU, I have just been hearing from a friend of the continual recruitment of agency nurses from southern England (and probably Africa before that), to prop up services in a Cumbrian hospital at considerable expense and with some obvious difficulties. Thank goodness they are here, but we do need to train more of our own, and the cost of paying back loans for their graduate training is apparently deterring many from going further than being auxillary nurses.
I had a hospital appt yesterday. African girl helping with the xray. consultant Indian continent. Tomorrow another consultant is Greek and the nice Indian man is fitting in an injection in his lunch hour.
just saying.
Ruvi, I think you are right about the NHS. I specifically and only mentioned the care sector, ie social care.
Fully understand about the need to build houses – but what I’m asking and so are many others is – how in the long term can this can be in anyway sustainable? The demographic changes in towns has been significant and that cannot continue indefinitely…As liberals do we think it’s a good thing to deprive third world countries of much needed qualified nursing staff…
We’d be naive to think that social cohesion is limitless – it certainly isn’t ..If the progressive left here & across Europe fails to understand that and deal with immigration issues – then the rise of right wing politics will certainly continue…
In such an emotive situation, stirred by the likes of Farage, logic just doesn’t work…
The myths about ‘illegal immigrants jumping housing queues’, ‘living in 5* accomodation’, ‘roaming the streets terrorising neighbourhoods’, ‘wanting to impose Sharia Law’, etc., etc. AND, the latest, ‘Muslims being immune from prosecution due to ‘two-tier policing’ are still believed…
99% of those repeating such stories happily shop in local stores, eat at restaurant/take-aways run by the same people they demonise..They have NEVER met an Islamist extremist but repeat the same stories..The Express and Mail, together with social media continue to feed biased information into the system..Farage repeats his promise to ‘stop the boats in 100 days’ (without any realistic methodology) and his acolytes believe it..
I asked a Reform voter friend what advantages he received for paying Farage a £25 ‘membership’ fee, considering that as a ‘member’ he had absolutely no input into the running of Farage’s ‘company’…His answer, “It gives me a sense of pride at being patriotic”…….
How do you counter that with logic?
Key factors which fuel the far-right campaign to demonise and scapegoat non-white immigrants are –
The ability of the Right to start by making some perfectly rational points – such as, that high net immigration acts to exacerbate the housing crisis – before they move on to the hate speech;
Denialism, by arrogant anti-racists, that even the rational points made by the Right could conceivably be valid, and could conceivably merit a considered response (not just a dismissive “well, raid the magic money tree and build tons of houses, and hey presto, your problem will have vanished”).
It was arrogance that lost us Brexit. We framed the conflict as being between us, intelligent cosmopolitan world citizens, versus them, ignorant prejudiced working-class oiks. The “oiks” didn’t like that. So they hit back, by voting for Brexit, and puncturing our arrogant illusion of superiority. If we’re so damn smart, how come we’re still making this mistake?
We rightly emphasise personal responsibility when discussing violence in all its forms. As mentioned it is also important to deal with the root causes whether it is disinformation or life challenges. Often crime is just the iceberg and points to deeper issues within our society. A two pronged approach is the only one likely to deal with these issues in the long term.