DAN HODGES: Man with Swastika tattoo didn’t emerge from a vacuum
Let’s start with the facts. Keir Starmer is right. The overwhelming majority of the violence and disorder we have seen on Britain’s streets is being perpetrated, organised and provoked by the Far-Right.
Yesterday I spoke to politicians from both the present and previous government. They had been in contact with senior police officers currently in the front line of dealing with the disturbances. And they were in agreement.
‘The thing that has alarmed the police is the scale of coordination over the disorder,’ a Home Office minister told me. ‘These aren’t just spontaneous outbreaks of violence. It’s right-wing extremists, and it’s very highly organised.’
A man with a Swastika tattoo attends a Far-Right protest in Sunderland this week
‘What’s caught everyone by surprise is the speed with which it’s being spread on social media,’ a Conservative former minister revealed, “especially the disinformation”.
“The police are really alarmed by it. It’s unprecedented in this country.”
Home Office officials believe that as hundreds of the perpetrators are processed through the courts over the coming days, the links between the rioters and Far-Right extremist groups will be even more firmly established. To see the evidence of this, however, you need look no further than the footage of the fire-scarred Holiday Inn in Tamworth. And in particular the “Get out”, “F**k P**is” and “England” graffiti daubed on the wall.
But if we’re going to face up squarely to who is perpetrating the racist violence disfiguring our nation, we also have to confront another reality. Which is that racist extremism does not emerge from, or flourish within, a vacuum.
To reappropriate Tony Blair’s famous phrase, being tough on Far-Right extremism is not enough. We also have to be tough on the causes of Far-Right extremism.
And that has to start by looking at the purchase the Far-Right now have amongst some elements of the white-white working class. We have all seen the footage of the burly man walking proudly through the streets of Sunderland sporting his Swastika tattoo. And over the past week he has not been walking alone.
The vast majority of working people will have no truck with violence. But my family came from Birkenhead in north-west England. My grandmother was a barmaid, and my grandfather a brickie who served in the Navy during the war. Any man who had tried walking down their street with a Swastika wouldn’t have made it to the end of the road.
But today, on many similar streets to the one they lived on, the Far-Right are able to operate and agitate freely. And we need to understand why.
One factor is clearly social depravation. Poverty gives non-one an excuse to torch police stations, or attack a migrant. But if you look at where the riots are taking place, there is geographic synergy.
During the election I visited Jeremy Hunt’s constituency in Godalming, and went canvassing with him. The single biggest issue to arise on the doorstep was the small boats.
A man in Belfast appears to raise his hand in a Nazi salute in front of police officers during an anti-immigration rally
A masked protester raises his arms outside Leeds Town Hall. The protesters were allegedly organised as a response to the killings in Southport
But we will not see widespread rioting in Surrey. Or any of Britain’s other more affluent areas. Because social injustice is the food upon which the Far-Right feeds.
Though the Far-Right are voracious. So their hunger is also sated by another issue. Immigration.
We can put in place whatever proscriptions we like. But there is no way of effectively confronting the racists extremists if we cannot finally bring into alignment our mainstream politicians’ promises on immigration, the policies they actually deliver and the wishes of the British people.
People constantly opine ‘we need an open and honest debate about immigration’. We don’t. We’ve been debating immigration ad nauseum since the 1950s. The view of the majority is clear. They want legal immigration controlled and reduced, and they want illegal immigration eradicated. That’s it. The responsibility of politicians is now to stop talking about it, and deliver it.
There are other issues. The use and abuse of social media. Senior politicians like Nigel Farage have, in my view, stoked unrest in the wake of Southport, and acted as the Far-Right’s unwitting recruiting sergeants. The way our police have been neutered to the extent they are no longer capable of asserting their authority in public order situations.
But the sterile debate we have seen over the past few days – in which some have sought to deflect from and minimise the role of the Far-Right, and others have attempted to overlook the conditions and factors that allow to flourish – must end. This isn’t hard. When people with Swastikas are burning migrants out of hotels we don’t scratch our chins and say ‘hmmmm, it’s a bit complicated’. We call them out for what they are: Far-Right, racist extremists.
But condemnation is not enough. In the days to come we are going to have to burrow deep, and dig that racism and extremism out by its roots.
Tough on Far-Right extremists. Tough on the causes of Far-Right extremism. That is the way – the only way – to reclaim our streets, our communities and our country.
