Monday 13 November 2023

The ugly face of Brexit

The appalling scenes at the Cenotaph this weekend were in my opinion the unmistakable result of Brexit. I have no truck with antisemitism or Hamas and whether it was wise to hold a protest March in London at the same time as Remembrance Day or not, what happened in Whitehall shamed us all. Suella Braverman’s article in The Times, far from being helpful seemed designed to bring out the worst of the extreme right. But let's be frank Brexit has emboldened these racists, Saturday was just an excuse.

Also, to be critical of the Israeli government is not to be anti-Semitic. Many Israelis themselves are angry at Netanyahu for his policies in the occupied territories, with settlements built on Palestinian land.

I condemn unreservedly the Hamas attacks on innocent men, women, and children in Southern Israel as I do the Israeli bombing of civilians in Gaza. There is talk of the Israeli response being 'disproportionate' as if they're entitled to kill 1,400 innocent Palestinians and that is somehow alright.  Whatever sympathy I had with Israel on 7 October is now wearing very thin as I suspect it is with many others.

The pro-Palestinian protest march was an opportunity for Braveman to write her inflammatory article for The Times last week, widely seen as a signal to a lot of white supremacists, encouraging them onto the streets in a counter-protest to 'protect' the Cenotaph so she could again demonise Muslims.

The well-attended protest march wasn't entirely peaceful but it was a heck of a lot more peaceful than events in Whitehall where the vast majority of the 120 or so arrests were made. Most of the trouble came from the 'counter-protesters' in Whitehall, nowhere near the march itself.  Men like Tommy Robinson (aka Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon) always seem to pop up in the centre of the mayhem. He was certainly in the thick of it on Saturday until things really started to get violent when he scuttled off in a taxi.

To see the link between the right-wing troublemakers and Brexit you only have to look at the video of Martin Daubney, a presenter at GB News:

 What on earth was he doing there?

And look at this tweet from him. What is that supposed to mean?

Many of these ultra-nationalist groups have come out of the woodwork post-Brexit, wound up by immigration and drunk on the idea of restoring ‘global Britain’ as if we’re all going to be press-ganged into the Royal Navy and issued with cutlasses and muskets. They are like MAGA Republicans in the USA.

I despair at the nonsense spouted on Twitter by people with a Union Jack in their Twitter handle about trade and sticking it to 'Jonny Foreigner’ in some way. There has always been an undercurrent of racism in this country, let's be honest, as there is in many countries, but decent politicians try to mollify the indigenous population, not pour petrol on the flames. 

All Brexiteers may not be racists but all racists are certainly Brexiteers. Vote Leave and Leave.eu were happy to enlist the help of these people to win the referendum, to play on the fears of a lot of ordinary people, but are struggling now to control the forces they have unleashed on us.

They are all part of various groups like The National Front, The British National Party, Britain First, or The English Defence League and intent on driving wedges between the population. Anyone not white, permanently angry, shaven-headed, and tattooed is regarded as fair game. 

What Farage did with his ‘Breaking Point’ poster was to make racism more acceptable, to allow it to crawl out of the shadows. If a political party leader could openly attack foreigners for wanting to come to Britain, why couldn’t they? All the progress made over the last 50-60 years since the 1965 Race Relations Act was set back by Brexit.

People voted to leave the EU for all sorts of reasons, but immigration was undoubtedly one of them. And Farage’s original campaign and his constant focus on asylum seekers turning up on Kent beaches has kept the subject at the top of the agenda. The Express and Mail are happy to amplify it all.

Even now there are leading Tory politicians claiming that Braverman - and by extension these violent right-wing groups - somehow speak for the majority in Britain. Emphatically, she does not.

It's almost beyond belief that a Home Secretary should face credible accusations of whipping up the mob against the police. Braverman kicked off the latest episode but all the talk this morning is of an imminent reshuffle and there is a lot of speculation the Home Secretary will get demoted or sacked, which will almost certainly result in a leadership challenge.

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