“We’re not racists,” Janice and Kerry from Plaistow tell independent news site The Londoner while on Tommy Robinson’s march on Saturday. But Plaistow is “full of Muslims. And you know how they breed like rabbits.” What Plaistow needs, Janice and Kerry suggest, is a “mass deportation.”
Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you, Janice and Kerry. But yeah. You’re a pair of racists all right.
Janice and Kerry can be forgiven for thinking they aren’t racists, however. Because that’s what much of the media has been telling them recently.
That actually, they’re just decent ordinary Brits – the kind, as Times columnist and Sky News broadcaster Trevor Phillips put it, “you meet in a country pub with their dog, or in a queue for drinks at half-time.”
Or as Spectator writer Jonathan Sacerdoti observed, people who “had long been told their views were racist, bigoted or ignorant. Now, they stood among thousands who were unafraid to speak freely, and proud to do so.”
Perhaps Phillips and Sacerdoti trod a different path through the march than our columnists James Ball and Paul Mason, who witnessed a very different event. “There were very few home-made placards: because what these people think, they know is legally unsayable in public. They want to return Britain to being a white monoculture through deporting not just asylum seekers but black and brown British citizens,” Paul noted.
In his report, James writes: “‘Rule, Britannia’ breaks out occasionally, but not as often as ‘Oh Tommy Tommy – Tommy Tommy Tommy Tommy Robinson.’”
There’s a strange equivocation in our media today about the motives of this significant gathering in support of a categorically racist, far-right criminal thug. That somehow those marchers are unconnected to the man they march to. And that because there were so many of them, their obnoxious views deserve respect and understanding. That’s dangerous bullshit.
This is not to say we are blind to the political failures that have allowed – and continue to allow – this right-wing menace to gain traction. Those failures stretch back decades and are fundamental. I’m proud we have such brilliant political insight from writers like Paul, James, Matthew d’Ancona, Sonia Sodha, Tom Baldwin, Patience Wheatcroft and, of course, Alastair Campbell.
Also in this week’s edition, in his weekly diary, Alastair reflects on the debacle that was his friend Peter Mandelson’s appointment as British ambassador to the United States. It’s an unflinchingly honest assessment of Mandelson’s flaws as well as an insightful critique of how Downing Street could have made such a mess of things. It’s a must-read.
Ros Taylor writes about an ever-growing crisis in our society – retirement. As the state pension age creeps up (now 68 for millennials … but be grateful; it’s 70 in Denmark!) how will older folk function in a fast-changing job market?
Olive Pometsey delves deep into the frankly bizarre world of Artificial Intelligence pop music … it’s a fascinating read and includes the nugget that one AI band actually released two albums before anyone twigged.
John Bleasdale meets the director of what will almost certainly be this year’s most moving film – The Voice of Hind Rajab. This story of the killing by the Israeli Defence Force of a five-year-old Palestinian girl has broken audiences around the world. John’s interview reveals the thinking behind the artistic decisions that deliver its emotional force.
Finally, Marie Le Conte goes to the cinema to watch a “lesbian B-movie” called Honey, Don’t!. I could try to explain why, but I really wouldn’t do it justice. I’ll leave it to her.
