By Isle of Wight Observer
Two thirds of Brits say they can’t afford a foreign holiday this year. In theory, that should mean the Island is bursting at the seams. Instead, some people evidently decided to stay home and riot.
Muslims make up just 6 per cent of the UK population – yet in recent years, Islamic extremists have been responsible for 67 per cent of terrorist incidents. Questioning this disproportionate number is entirely legitimate; taking to the streets armed with bricks and bottles and setting fire to vehicles and buildings is definitely not.
My old Nan was a terrible racist. Shortly after WWII, her son, my uncle Joe, was working in India and died in a car accident. I can’t remember ever knowing how that happened, nor can anyone still alive. Nan could have held a specific Indian person responsible; instead she blamed everyone with brown skin. In the late ’70s, my brother had a new Irish girlfriend; when told this, my other Gran said: “We don’t want any of those in the family.”
Attitudes like theirs seem outrageous now, and, even at the time, they were embarrassing. Because of the Blitz, people of my grandparents’ generation often disliked Germans. Many people who lived through it remained hostile forever afterwards. Thirty years after the war ended, I went to Germany and, on realising I was English, older people could be distinctly unfriendly. Eventually I realised they too had experienced loss, due to allied bombing.
Ours is generally a tolerant country, and these days most of us have friends and relatives who were born elsewhere, including three of my children’s partners. The terrible events in Southport were the catalyst for the dreadful riots. We now know the person charged with them is the son of people originally from Rwanda. When the mob got his religion all wrong, they attacked the local mosque and hurled bricks at the police. The Prime Minister and other senior politicians immediately described those taking to the streets as ‘the far right’ – but that isn’t fair or accurate. To my eyes, most rioters looked like disaffected white working-class people. Didn’t Labour used to represent them?
Egged on by our tough-talking government, these foolish idiots received ‘swift justice’ and seemingly unduly harsh sentences. What happened to the courts backlog? To dissuade copycats, offenders – even kids – were made an example of, but that doesn’t address the underlying problem of unprecedented migration. More than 18,000 people have arrived by boat this year, including 700 last Sunday. 1 1/5 million live in the UK illegally, despite politicians consistently promising to reduce the numbers. “Taking back control” was the broken Brexit promise, “Reducing net migration to the tens of thousands” was David Cameron’s. May, Johnson and Sunak all failed, and now it’s evident our new government hasn’t got any practical immigration policy either. No wonder so few people bothered voting last month.
Nett migration was around 55,000 people in 1996 and only 3 per cent of British people said they were concerned about it. Then under the Blair government, more people arrived in 11 years than came between the Battle of Hastings (1066) and 1950. Anyone expressing concern is labelled racist, but when criticism is driven underground, it’s bound to cause resentment. As for ‘two tier policing’, you don’t need to look hard to find examples. Remember the Batley teacher who dared show a cartoon of the prophet Mohammad in a lesson? He’s still in hiding with a new identity. Why didn’t those Asian men who assaulted police in Manchester receive Labour’s ‘swift justice’ too?
Stories like these, or David Amiss and Valdo Calocane, in Nottingham, undoubtedly fed the angry mob. But those feeling aggrieved should have directed their indignation peacefully at politicians, not Muslims or police. Regardless of race, anyone choosing to live here must share our values.
Britain has to remain a tolerant place; if not, we’re all doomed.