A bitter harvest

Dear all,

One of the most disturbing things about life in post-referendum Britain is the sense of insecurity that now prevails in English non-white communities.

The number of hate crimes reported by the police, immediately after the referendum result emerged in the early hours of June 24, confirm the creeping sense of dread that is felt by immigrants and the children of immigrants.

The police reported that, in less than a week, there was a rise of over 57 per cent in hate crimes, and over 80 incidents were reported in just a few days. The xenophobia was expressed in various ways and targeted several different communities -- hateful graffiti on a Polish Community Centre in London, verbal abuse on public transport in Manchester, anti-immigrant leaflets dropped into EU migrant homes, and a number of crimes targeting visibly Muslim individuals (like hijab-wearing women).

Amnesty International, UK also noted a resurgence in the use of the term ‘Paki’, originally used as a derogatory term in the Thatcher era.

How could this all happen so quickly? How could a civilised, tolerant, multi-cultural society suddenly descend into this sort of fascist and xenophobic thuggery? The answer: the rhetoric of the politicians who led the Leave campaign in the EU referendum is what enabled them.

There will always be some people in society with fairly racist and xenophobic views, but such individuals remain a fringe element until a mainstream, high profile leadership whips them into a frenzy of hatred, self-righteousness and tells them that it is okay to express such violent and hate-filled views.

The Leave campaign enabled the haters. Political rhetoric is not just words -- it is words with the power to change society. Words influence attitudes and condition minds. And in the case of the Leave campaign’s xenophobic rhetoric which implied that ‘foreigners’ were stealing jobs and housing from the British, words are what fuelled the wave of hate crimes following the Referendum.

Basically, those who led the campaign gave the bigots in our midst permission to express their bigotry. As Guardian columnist Aditya Chakraborrty lamented, "After a campaign scarred by bigotry, it’s become OK to be racist in Britain". About the rise in hate crimes and xenophobic language, he said "None of this is coincidental. It’s what happens when cabinet ministers, party leaders and prime-ministerial wannabes sprinkle arguments with racist poison. When intolerance is not only tolerated, but indulged and encouraged."

The campaign whipped up xenophobia by saying to voters that leaving the EU was a chance to "Take our country back". This became a rallying cry for much more than the question of EU membership; it became a justification for abusive behaviour and racist attacks. And the pity of it is that even senior leaders from the mainstream, and ruling, party exploited the idea of ‘taking our country back’ with disregard for the fact that it was throwing open the floodgates of intolerance and hate.

Nigel Farage has long preached this horrid sort of message, wrapping it up in the language of British nationalism, painting a picture of the average Briton, being a wronged and uncared for citizen whose country was being hijacked by immigrants and foreigners. But in the Leave campaign, he was joined by so-called serious politicians, cabinet ministers, MPs, a former London mayor.

This rhetoric of hate was halted temporarily by the shocking murder of the young Labour MP Joe Cox, who was a friend of immigrants and an advocate of tolerance. She was killed by a middle-aged white man with some Neo nazi links, presumably with a view to ‘taking his country back’. But her brutal murder -- shooting and stabbing in broad daylight in her constituency -- was not enough to stem the tide of pseudo nationalistic shouting. On June 24, UKIP’s Nigel Farage gleefully declared that the date should be celebrated as ‘Independence Day’.

This ‘independence’ will cost Britain dearly unless the politicians and the law enforcers make clear that there will be zero tolerance for hate crimes or discrimination. Brexit signals future economic instability and it is in such times that fascists, demagogues and self-serving politicians tend to succeed.

This is a health warning for Britain.

Best wishes,