Following the far-right flight path in Britain

BRITAIN: My recent experience of the supposedly defunct English Defence League (EDL) was a solitary white male draped in the flag of St George, the patron saint of England, who glowered at anti-racism demonstrators gathered in front of him in the Finchley suburb of North London.

The EDL is one of several far-right Islamophobic groups blamed for instigating the recent wave of racist riots. Their single Finchley supporter who dared to show his face but refused to give his name was the only EDL activist prepared to show up for a planned march outside an asylum opened a short distance from where l live. Our neighbours are a mix of two other Indian families, several white English couples, a Brazilian, two Iranians and a black couple.

Last week, we emailed each other to steer clear of the planned EDL protest on August 7 that threatened a repeat of the UK-wide riots that erupted after an act of random violence in Southport where a 17-year-old teenager was charged with stabbing three young girls and injuring several others at a holiday camp learning the dance routines of pop star Taylor Swift.

Our email exchanges highlighted typical local fears. “Please keep safe everyone”, “I have no words”, “Disgusting, sorry to see these people among us”. Each responded to the shocking wave of mindless racist violence aimed at asylum-seekers, but also at blacks and Asians lumped together as ‘Pakis’ (Pakistanis). Shops were vandalised, cars and buildings set on fire and mosques surrounded by gangs chanting “we want our country back” in more than 20 cities across the UK.

But we had nothing to fear. The man in St George’s flag was far outnumbered by counter-protestors who seemed to emerge from nowhere, converging in front of an Afghan market with heartwarming placards that declared, “Immigrants welcome, racists not!” and “Hope, not hate”. They were backed up by a large posse of police, supported by PM Keir Starmer and senior ministers. Starmer’s warning that extremists taking to the streets would face “the full force of the law” was swiftly followed by prison sentences for some early rioters ranging from 18 months to three years.

Part and parcel of daily life in the UK, racial violence escalated as people from former colonies flooded in to help rebuild a country devastated by the Second World War. Few felt welcome and right-wing politicians like Enoch Powell were quick to exploit concerns of the majority white community that they could soon be overwhelmed. A former minister and MP, Powell’s infamous speech in 1968 stoked racial tensions: “As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Romans, I seem to see ‘the river Tiber foaming with much blood’.”

Soon after, he was the keynote speaker at another event aimed at university students. Halfway through the speech, his wife in the audience turned to me and said, “I don’t know why people say Enoch is racist. He really loves Indians.” It was almost impossible to explain to Ms Powell and others like her how it felt to be at the sharp end of racist taunts.

At my school in Reading, where l was one of only two Indian students, gangs of white boys would break into singing Bing Crosby’s ‘I’m dreaming of a white Christmas’. Funny for them and humiliating for me, it is a memory that still resonates.

Even more chilling was an experience of reporting from Belfast in 1982. My news editor in London sent me to the capital of Northern Ireland to report the annual Orange Day marches that commemorate the victory of Protestant King William of Orange over Catholic King James II. These raucous events, fuelled by plenty of alcohol, often turn out to be excuses for lashing out at the minority Catholic community of Northern Ireland.

When leaders of a rally spotted me on the fringes writing notes, they suddenly turned on me. All I remember are the shouts “Grab the coon” as l ran as fast as l could and hid under the cash counter of a nearby newspaper shop. A handful of the marchers came looking, even banging their way into the shop, but fortunately failed to see me cowering between the legs of the shopkeeper and his cash machine.

Since those early days, when workers from South Asia and West Indies arrived in relatively small numbers, kept their heads down and avoided eye contact with whites, the nature of immigration has changed. The South Asian immigrants of the 1950s were followed by large numbers of better-educated and more prosperous East African Indians in the 1960s, then low-paid East Europeans from countries like Poland and Ukraine and, more recently, by waves of asylum seekers from the Middle East, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya.

Currently, an estimated 9 million foreign-born UK residents account for 14 percent of the population and about 9 percent are non-UK citizens. The resulting pressure on subsidised services like health, education, housing and unemployment allowances is massive.

Such foreigners are also easy targets for Powell’s successors—leaders of the 2024 far-right—who use social media to falsely claim migrants and asylum seekers have denied the country’s white deprived classes of a better life. Finchley and other targeted hotspots will continue to need backup and local support for the troubled times ahead.