An isosceles triangle of wind and racism
Update: it’s worth reading this report from March 2024, by Dame Sara Khan, Independent Adviser to the UK Government for Social Cohesion and Resilience. As she states, “The government of the day may choose to continue to commission further reviews as it has done in the past, but it is implementation and decisive action that is ultimately needed.”
We’re on our way back from a wonderful holiday and I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to return to England less. The violence that’s been visited upon many towns and cities by thugs over the last week while we’ve been away seems to have shocked a lot of people.
Those people mustn’t have been paying much attention to the state of the country or the wider world. To state the obvious, England is a deeply fragmented country. You could blame that on Brexit and on the Tories, and you’d be correct.
However, the issues run much deeper than that. Populists like Nigel Farage with their dogwhistle racist politics like to blame people weaker than themselves. In this case, refugees. But, to my mind, the issue is squarely about money.
If you look at a map of where the violence is kicking off, and compare that to maps of where people voted Reform at the recent General Election, you’ll notice a pattern. Now overlay a map of some of the poorest wards in England and we’ve got some correlation.
The letters section of The Guardian often has its fair share of hand-wringing middle-class left-leaning pearl-clutching. But these examples, including a first-hand account from a counter-demonstrator, the chair of a network of organisations dedicated to community cohesion, and an emeritus professor, paint a stark picture.
There’s a lot of disinformation doing the rounds, which as someone who wrote their thesis on digital literacies, and as the parent of two teenagers, is quite concerning. There’s no simple answer to systemic issues. It’s going to take a lot of work over multiple years, but it’s also going to take funding, something that’s been sorely lacking in our most deprived communities for far too long.
