A Black female MP has said her mum had a “meltdown” when she said she was going to leave her house during this summer’s racist riots.
Labour MP Dawn Butler, 54, said it brought back memories for her Jamaican parents, who faced awful racism when they came to the UK as part of the Windrush generation in the 1950. Ms Butler told the Mirror : “When I said to my mum that I was coming to see her she went into a complete meltdown and it shocked me to realise that actually.
“I mean I wasn’t actually at home but she thought I was at home and I almost had to pretend I was at home just so she knew I would be safe. And that triggering just really grounded me in that: oh my god this is what it was like and it’s bringing back some really bad memories of how they were chased, how they were beaten up, how they were spat up, how they were fought, how buildings were burnt.”
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It comes after Labour was warned there can be “no accommodation” for Reform UK, which was accused of peddling racism. Alarming research by charity Hope Not Hate showed more Reform voters thought Muslims bore more responsibility for the summer riots than the far-right.
More than a quarter (27%) thought far-right thugs bore little or no responsibility for the sickening violence. Polling of 4,000 Reform supporters – the largest such research ever conducted – found 28% support far-right rabble-rouser Tommy Robinson.
And 40% said they think violence is sometimes necessary, compared to 20% who said it’s not. Hope Not Hate director Nick Lowles said Nigel Farage’s party is an “existential threat” to the UK. He said: “There can be no accomodation to Reform UK and the racism they peddle.”
He went on: “We have to be up to the fight.” Zara Mohammed, the head of the Muslim Council of Britain, told a Stand Up to Racism fringe event that Muslims faced shocking hatred, being forced to barricade themselves inside mosques.
She last week criticised a “shocking” lack of engagement from the government over the violence, which largely targeted Muslims. Ms Mohammed said she is still yet to get any official contact from them, telling the Mirror after the event: “The communities are disappointed… they’re all writing to me saying why isn’t the government engaging?
“So I don’t speak for myself here, it’s for the communities that we represent who are pretty baffled about why there hasn’t been any engagement, especially because it’s a new government and a new opportunity to do things differently, which we are hopeful of.
“I think the riots have just created so much anxiety and fear in communities that they want to be reassured that there is a strategy in the long term to tackle Islamophobia, to tackle hatred and to tackle division.”