The Labour government must call out the role that Brexit-fuelled xenophobia has played in this week’s violent unrest in England – and it has nothing to fear from doing so, the Rejoin EU Party says.
Keir Starmer described the far-right riots as “organised, violent thuggery”, said those involved would face severe penalties and pledged a crackdown on misinformation on social-media channels.
But Starmer also needs to accept, acknowledge and tackle the underlying causes of the trouble, which include in no small part the anti-immigrant sentiment unleashed by Brexit, Rejoin EU says.
While racism and discrimination clearly existed in the UK prior to the 2016 referendum, the vote – now widely regarded as a mistake – has legitimised and increased it, according to research.
However, Rejoin EU believes the heartening response to the rioters from counter-demonstrators shows Labour has nothing to fear from calling out controversial comments by the likes of Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, who faced criticism after accusing the police of “two-tier policing” and treating the rioters more severely than others.
Moreover, a YouGov poll this week showed Farage now holds a negative rating among every group of the British public, including Leave voters for the first time.
Rejoin EU Party executive committee member and anti-racism campaigner Martin Housden said Leave campaigners won the 2016 vote with spurious claims that immigrants sponged off the British taxpayer and were responsible for unemployment, lower wages, NHS queues and housing shortages.
“None of this is true, yet few mainstream politicians had the courage or just plain decency to stand up to the hate merchants and debunk the anti-immigration myths,” he said. “The recent riots are the direct result. As Baroness Doreen Lawrence said back in 2017, ‘Brexit gave people permission to be racist.’
“The prompt police reaction to the rioters this week and the heart-warming turnout by counter-protestors are causes for hope. But the respite can only be temporary unless we deal with the root cause – xenophobia and the blaming of all problems on immigrants or refugees. And we can’t do that whilst we accept Brexit.”
Former MEP and Rejoin EU supporter John Stevens said: “The fact is that Brexit looms large as a contributing factor to the current controversies but, as with other aspects of the damage it has caused, this is something many of our politicians – whether in Reform, the Conservatives, Labour, the Lib Dems etc – simply seem unable to acknowledge. One thing they should be saying to address the cause of these troubles is that we must reverse Brexit.”
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