I spent much of my childhood in a largely white-working class council estate in the West Midlands, which to this day has suffered from decades of neglect, underfunding and poor-quality schooling. I grew used to the signs of ‘Keep Britain White’ and ‘NF’ painted on the walls as I walked on the streets.
In those days, this was not news, or something that was trending, it was just the norm.
In that poor white-working class area were kindhearted and welcoming people for whom racial difference was not something that particularly agitated them. However, in that same community, there were vehement racists, some affiliated to the organised far-right and who were strong advocates of the National Front. This led to a situation where before my 10th birthday, my Mom a single-parent NHS nurse, had her cars thrown into the river three times by our anti-social next-door neighbour who were incredibly offended that Black people lived next door to them. It was obvious they were responsible, yet no one on the estate reported them, and the police showed no interest in solving these crimes.
I give you this short personal story as there is a danger of seeing far-right racism as something that is new. It did not just emerge post-EU enlargement, with freedom of movement or since the Syrian crisis in 2011. It existed very strongly when Britain was 95% White in 1991 when my Mom’s car was stolen and pushed into the river. My mom lost her car which was tragic, however others have lost more. Anthony Walker lost his life on 30th July 2005. 19 years later, on the exact same day, far-right riots began in Southport and spread across the country.
History is repeating itself again and again. Even when relatively few people of colour were invited here in the late 40’s to help rebuild Britain when the country was on its knees, there was an uproar. In fact, rather than thank and support for these immigrants who helped Britain prosper again, many were met with far-right riots, the colour bar and rental listings that read ‘No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs’.
The numbers were low; most migrants worked in productive sectors and prosperity was increasing. This growth was largely passed on to workers in the form of higher wages. A decade after the Windrush generation arrived on British shores, the then Prime Minister Harold Macmillan famously said that “most of our people have never had it so good”.
Despite this golden age of productivity, growth and investment in Britain following the aforementioned immigration, we paradoxically saw increases in violent racism.
In the summer of 1958, racial tensions erupted in violence against Black communities in both Nottingham in the East Midlands and Notting Hill in London. On the night of May 17, 1959, Kelso Cochrane was walking home in Notting Hill when a gang of young white men attacked and killed him. They fled the scene of the crime. Two men were arrested but were later released without any charges.
What history tells us is that the far-right are not solely concerned with a particular numerical threshold of immigrants of colour, how they contribute to the economy, or how the country is growing or even if wages are increasing. This is about more than that, it is about an ideology, a mission and a ‘purification’ of the country.
Therefore, the debate cannot only be centred on any recent increases (even though it is currently decreasing) in immigration. Rather we must have an honest conversation about the psychology of far-right extremism. We must confront those ideological dreams of the presumed ‘halcyon days’ of ‘racial purity’, in what Jason Stanley calls ‘the pure mythic past’. As he states:
‘In the rhetoric of extreme nationalists, such a glorious past has been lost by the humiliation brought on by globalism, liberal cosmopolitanism, and respect for “universal values” such as equality’.
However, fascist myths take nationalist myths a step further with ‘the creation of a glorious national history in which the members of the chosen nation ruled over others, the result of conquests and civilisation-building achievements’.
Instead of confronting such myths and our nation’s relationship with them, unfortunately, we have been left with a conversation that has become toxic and oversimplified. Too often, politicians have chosen to inflame the raging polarised debates for political capital, which have, of course, only worsened the problem. Rather than investing in meaningful educational curriculum reform to allow for a more grown-up understanding about race and ethnicity, we have been overly concerned about Britain being ‘painted in a bad light.’ Rather than developing an industrial strategy that creates a better enabling environment for recent migrants to work, public policy has chosen to leave them in extended limbo periods which worsens poverty, distress and in many cases modern slavery.
At the same time, many technocrats have focused on piecemeal approaches which of course have their place but are in and of themselves insufficient. These call for more community centres, youth centres, the creation of spaces of cohesion so that those who have been marginalised can ‘integrate better’. My deep worry here is that there is a risk of overly placing the blame on those who have been excluded rather than addressing exclusionary conditions.
Some liberal economists and politicians argue that all would be well if we had faster growth and a return to higher productivity. Space and growth both of course have their place, but unless this is combined with confronting deep-rooted hierarchical understandings of race and racism, then this will be insufficient, and history will only repeat itself once again.
By Matthew Johnson
ROTA CEO