Put out more flags

Britain goes slightly mad

Like all meat, the British tend to turn in hot weather. Last summer’s heatwave saw white riots and the imprisonment of keyboard warriors advocating mass murder of asylum seekers, and the jailing of rioters, including this unfortunate gentleman:

899 people got arrested in total in the disturbances, 41% of who had previously been reported for domestic violence. I’m not having migrants harm my women and kids, only I get to do that.

In hot weather, bacteria and viruses multiply faster and so do social media messages. Maggots like Farage and Robinson thrive.

This summer has seen a less violent wave of protests against migrants, most notably in Epping in Essex. Like last year, it was a crime against children that sparked it all off. Last year it was rumours that the Southport child murderer was an asylum seeker (he was actually born in Cardiff to parents who came from Rwanda). The trouble in Epping this year started after an Ethiopian asylum seeker was arrested for pestering some 14 year old girls, touching one on the thigh and inviting two of the girls to “come back to the Bell Hotel and have babies”.

A difference this year is that most of the media has switched sides and is now supporting the protesters. Despite most protests being attended by only handfuls of people, the media are there, desperate for something to kick off. Britain is a “tinderbox” they keep writing, hopefully. Hold your breath and lift the rock and see what’s scurrying and oozing underneath. Scores of repulsive right wing commentators vomiting out the same story over and over in the papers and raking in the cash for their mean, rabble-rousing substack columns. Substitute “Jew” for “migrant” and they’d fit in very well in 1930s Germany.

Fortunately no one reads much any more and no-one takes any notice of them. But one person does command nationwide attention - darling of the BBC and news media, Mr Nigel Farage. The man who spent ten years campaigning for Brexit and then applied for a German passport the day after the vote. Reform are now at 35% in the polls which would give them more than 400 seats at the next election (unless Starmer changes the voting system to every vote counts - see this piece, which predicts Labour will hold a referendum on moving to PR before the next election in order to stop Nigel).

The world is complicated and insecure these days. The gap between haves and have-nots continues to widen. Britain is living beyond its means so public services are under strain. In our everyday lives, there’s a sense that we are gradually spending more and more to get less and less. Trust in institutions is breaking down. We cast around for scapegoats.

Farage and other populists are skilful at this game. Characterise the institutions themselves as the elite, and blame them. The super-rich, the people with all the power, the people funding Farage and other politicians, mysteriously escape criticism. And blame immigrants. In hard times, this has happened everywhere since the beginning of human civilisation. The people in power encourage it to deflect any blame away from them.

This famous cartoon sums it up neatly:

Let’s not dismiss people’s concerns over migration as completely false. The asylum system in Britain is a mess - housing immigrants in 3 star hotels for over a year; not letting them work so they have to hang around doing nothing; not allowing foreigners to claim asylum except when they get to the UK so that most asylum seekers, genuine or otherwise, are “illegal immigrants”. Immigration control and the asylum system now costs about £5 billion per annum, up from £500 million ten years earlier. Ironically, one of the main reasons for voting for Brexit was for us to control our borders but one of its many adverse effects was to remove our right to return immigrants to other EU countries. £5 billion is an awful lot of money but immigration/asylum is nowhere near the top three expense items our government spends money on, though over a quarter of the population think it is.¹

We need to get better control over immigration, but has high net migration “caused incalculable damage to British society” as Starmer claimed earlier this year? Unemployment is still low, wages are increasing ahead of inflation and violent crime is still much lower than in the 1990s. London is not Sharia stab central. In areas of high immigration, there are many anecdotal tales of increased pressure on social services, especially housing and hospitals, and city centres becoming less safe. Many people however have swallowed the narrative that Britain is “going to the dogs” or “is at breaking point” despite not being hugely affected themselves. Question them about how their own lives have materially got worse and they often say, “well, not where I live but you hear on the news” .. etc.

If you go onto YouTube it won’t take long before you come across rat-holes into the murky sewers of Islamophobia. Some of the plumpest, nastiest rats are earning a living in plain sight writing in the Daily Telegraph, usually from their tax haven foreign residences. The argument runs that Islam is not compatible with British values and Muslim immigrants have a problem with women and cannot be expected to live in this country without at best disrespecting women here and at worst attacking them. This explains much of the fear and resentment against many asylum seekers.

There may or may not be some grain of truth in this, but what is clear is that there is a very nice line of business for a lot of people in stoking up these fears, and also that the vast majority of Muslims in this country behave completely lawfully. It’s a short step from using these sorts of arguments to creating an extremely hostile environment for millions of Muslims who have lived here peacefully and lawfully all their lives. Let’s see what happens when Farage takes power in 2029.

In the meantime, what we have got is flags. Operation Raise the Colours began last month, co-founded by Britain First head of security Andrew Currien, who has a criminal record for involvement in a violent brawl which ended in a man being crushed to death. Is this a spontaneous outburst of healthy patriotism, or is it, as John Harris in the Guardian says, “flags as symbols of prejudice, not pride – and a distinct air of menace”?

Some councils have seemed a little over-zealous in removing them, which of course plays into the victimhood that’s been a taxi-driver staple for many years (see you can’t say anything these days, and the link to Stewart Lee’s piece). This was on Facebook this morning - not so funny, but maybe he’s got a point. Similarly, Wife: “The burglar’s still here, but I’ve called the police and they’re too busy. Husband: “It’s OK, they’ll be here in a minute, I’ve just complained about migrants on social media”. Which brings us full circle.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has hit on a surefire way of taking the wind out of the sails of the Raise the Colours craze. Support it. “Put them up anywhere” she said today. “I’m going to confess I have not just the St George’s flag, I have St George’s bunting. I have also union jack bunting which is currently still hanging up in my garden shed.” Labour is so monumentally unpopular that Cooper’s support will be an instant kiss of death for the movement.

And the weather’s cooled down, and when that happens, so do we. Britain will be restored to its default state of grumbling, resentful acquiescence. Till next summer.

1. Top five are: health £212bn, state pensions 141bn, local government 130bn, social security 118bn, education 106bn. Even more amazingly, 20% thought MPs expenses are in the top three - they are in fact 0.01% of all spending. Time to spend more on education?