Brexit boneheads begrudge bigotry blaming
I love alliterations. So shoot me.
A twat.
…and some people really want to. They – the ones who voted to make Great Britain Not-So-Great anymore – are shocked and appalled, Mr. Speaker, that anyone would ever, ever suggest that (a) they used dog-whistles to win or (b) they have a disproportionately-large number of knuckle-draggers on their side.
So, let’s look at the evidence, shall we?
- When Shahesta Shaitly asked a cabbie in the Midlands at the weekend: “Why did you vote leave?” she was told: “To get you lot out of here.”Her case is unfortunately not unique. It is one of more than 100 reports of racist incidents since the EU referendum that I have collated for the Muslim Council of Britain. The result seems to have unleashed a Pandora’s box of bigotry and Islamophobia – one that will require strong collective action to close.
- Last May UKIP member Ken Chapman, hoping to be elected to Amber Valley Borough Council in Derbyshire, wrote the following post:“islam is a cancer that needs eradicating multiculturism does not work in this country clear them all off to the desert with their camals that’s their way of life.”
- Police believe there has been an increase in hate crimes and community tensions since last week’s referendum. Initial figures show an increase of 57% in reported incidents between Thursday and Sunday compared with the same days four weeks earlier, the National Police Chiefs’ Council said.
- Last year UKIP was forced to distance itself from local council candidate James Elgar after the discovery of tweets like this: #ThingsAsianBoysDo groom and rape underage white girls, stab and rob innocent old white people, bomb innocent white people #EctEctEct [sic]”
- According to reports from the Cambridge News, a number of cards saying “Leave the EU/No more Polish vermin” in both English and Polish were found outside St Peter’s school by teaching assistants and students, including an 11-year-old Polish child, who reported they made him feel “really sad”.Cards bearing the same message were posted around a number of properties, police confirmed.
- More than a hundred incidents of racial abuse and hate crime have been reported since the UK voted to leave the European Union. Many of the alleged perpetrators cited the decision to leave the EU explicitly. One video, purportedly filmed in Hackney on the morning after the referendum, shows a man arguing with someone in a car before yelling: “Go back to your country.”
- Reports of racial abuse on Britain’s streets have spiked following the country’s bitterly fought Brexit referendum, campaigners say. More than 100 alleged hate crimes have been brought to the attention of the Muslim Council of Britain since Friday’s result. Immigration was among the chief concerns of “Leave” voters, according to pollsters, and the “Remain” campaign accused some of its opponents of encouraging racist and xenophobic attitudes. In the wake of the “Leave” victory — 17.4 million votes to 16.1 million — dozens of people posted on social media that they had suffered or witnessed racial abuse by people apparently using the result to legitimize their views.
And so on. There’s plenty more, for those with a stomach for it.
So, to those Brexit types who say that they didn’t make implicit/explicit appeals to bigotry to win – to those who say they weren’t anti-immigrant – I say:
Go tell Ms. Le Pen, and Mr. Trump, and Mr. Putin, and the assorted European neo-Nazis and white supremacists who rallied to your cause because it was anti-immigrant, anti-refugee and pro-racist.
They’ll laugh at you, too.