We are horrified and enraged by the escalation of violence against migrants, Muslims, and racialised people by far-right mobs across the UK in which lies spread about the perpetrator of the horrific murder of 3 young girls in Southport on 29 July 2024 were cynically weaponised. As many others have stated, this violence has not come out of a vacuum, but from a deeply racist and Islamophobic establishment and media landscape with global connections.
For several decades the so-called War on Terror unleashed a wave of Islamophobia and violence against Muslims which has grown to horrific proportions as years have passed, creating its own racist and often gendered tropes. These have been used to whip up more Islamophobic violence by the far right.
Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza since October 2023 has further legitimised violence against Muslims particularly amongst the far right in the UK, with dominant media narratives and politicians framing those killed in Gaza as Islamic terrorists, and pro-Palestine protestors as supporters of Hamas. The direct links between the UK far right and Israel are underlined by photos of fascist leader Tommy Robinson and his allies posing on Israeli tanks, alongside Israeli Defence Force (IDF) soldiers, and wearing IDF T-shirts. Underlying this is funding of Robinson by people directly connected to the Israeli state.
Tellingly, Robinson’s racism and xenophobia does not extend to Hindus; Robinson has openly expressed support for Hindutva forces previously, saying in a video that Hindus and Sikhs have been ‘a shining example of how immigration can work’ and that Hindus in the UK are facing ‘persecution’ from ‘Islamists and extremists’. During the Leicester violence in September 2022, when Muslim homes and shops were attacked by Hindu supremacist mobs, Robinson attempted to mobilise his far-right supporters to join the attacks. This reflects close connections with Hindu supremacists in India and in the UK diaspora which are not new. Tommy Robinson has been frequently platformed on Modi – and RSS – controlled media, while online the BJP’s troll army has been hugely amplifying the UK fascists’ Islamophobic hate and lies.
Of course, the government and media responded with the same rhetoric of ‘violence on both sides’ during the Leicester violence as they have during the current far-right attacks. This is not a coincidence. The UK establishment, whether led by the Conservatives or the Labour Party, has consistently refused to call Islamophobia by its name, let alone acknowledge or take responsibility for its cause. The Islamophobia which has risen to the surface in the current bout of fascist violence is bred by insidious dominant narratives which paint Muslims the world over as terrorists that deserve to have their homes and communities destroyed, whether by far-right mobs or settler colonialists.
We need to start naming accurately: ‘riots’ or ‘pogroms’ not ‘protests’, ‘terrorists’ or ‘far-right thugs’ not ‘anti-immigration protestors’. BBC reports have framed Muslim anti-fascists as the real threat ‘confront[ing]’ far-right protestors with chants of ‘Allahu akbar’, once again playing into the dominant construction of Muslims as organised terrorists and the far-right as protestors with legitimate grievances. Meanwhile, far-right narratives have been hugely amplified on social media by figures like Elon Musk and Andrew Tate.
British politicians like Suella Braverman have repeatedly painted pro-Palestine protests as anti-semitic, whilst refusing to name the current far-right violence as Islamophobic. Rishi Sunak – who has his own connections with Hindu supremacism – is forever associated with the ‘Stop the Boats’ slogan which is now being shouted by far-right mobs. But it is not just the Conservatives that have emboldened the far right through such rhetoric. Ahead of the recent General Election, current Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer emphasised that Labour would be sending migrants back to the countries they had come from, stating that ‘people coming from countries like Bangladesh are not being removed’ and that this would change. Under Starmer Labour continuously competed with the Tories in racist dog whistle politics around migration and refugees, projecting itself as more effective in preventing so-called ‘illegal’ migration, and in government one of their first actions has been to launch a new wave of raids and deportations. Meanwhile the new government is set to continue the policies of austerity, cuts and privatisation which have created such fertile ground for fascist ideologies.
It has been uplifting to see thousands rally against the fascists in the streets all across the UK. On the evening of Wednesday 7 August, massive anti-fascist protests took place at over 30 locations listed as planned targets of far-right violence, including immigration lawyers’ offices and advice centres. The far-right was thus thwarted in many of these locations. But they are continuing to organise, terrifying attacks are ongoing, and the need for resistance has never been greater.
In today’s new conditions, we must learn from and build on the struggles of the Asian communities of the 1970s and 80s. Their anti-imperialist analysis understood the deep roots of racism in colonialism and the new colonial wars, which lie just below the white British collective subconscious and are easily tapped into as required by fascism. They also understood the need for Black and South Asian unity. Their hard won struggles established that ‘Self-defence is no offence’. As members of the South Asian diaspora, we must continue and extend this legacy – by publicly naming and consistently challenging Islamophobia and its centrality to far right organising across interconnected global political and economic contexts, whilst organising across our communities in unflinching solidarity.
