Mr Brightside: Reflections 

 

“Through the mirror of my mind 

Through these tears that I’m crying 

Reflects a hurt I can’t control” 

 

I spent some of my deckchair time considering the recent riots, the whys and wherefores, and what it all means. 

There has been much speculation as to the status of the rioters, thugs out for a fight and looting, or terrorists. 

Whilst there action might be viewed as terrorism, the title terrorist does them too much credit. They are simply rather stupid people, led by the nose by the real culprits; Messrs Farage, Robinson, Laurence Fox, and numerous Tory MPs past and present. If you wish, they are this generations stormtroopers. 

When cast in that light they become all the more sinister, as does some of the statistics that their activity has unveiled. 

According to a YouGov poll 20% of Reform voters said they supported the anti-immigration riots. A third of the party’s voters said they thought the unrest was justified, though only 7% said it was “completely justified”. Opposition to the riots was near-universal among supporters of every other party. 

Who said Reform wasn’t dangerous? 

 

‘Simply rather stupid people, led by the nose by the real culprits; Messrs Farage, Robinson, Laurence Fox, and numerous Tory MPs past and present’

 

I omitted one person from my list of agitators, Elon Musk, primarily because he isn’t British,. I have always thought there was something of the night about him, and, with, his acquisition of Twitter, now “X”,  it has become a haven for racism and hate.  

Post-Musk’s purchase, one analysis of tweets found a “nearly 500% increase in use of the N-word in the 12-hour window immediately following the shift of ownership to Musk”. The same study also found that posts including “the word ‘Jew’ had increased fivefold since before the ownership transfer”. 

On his own X account, Musk shared with his 193m followers a fake Telegraph headline, falsely claiming that Keir Starmer planned to create “detainment camps” for rioters in the Falkland Islands, and doing it by quote-tweeting the co-leader of the extreme far-right Britain First organisation. It was Musk who inflamed an already incendiary situation by tweeting of the UK, “Civil war is inevitable”. 

Its high time “X” was closed, free speech is one things, race hate is something different altogether. 

Racist agitators aside, it’s interesting to see the impact of the Tories 14-yr in power on racism, and emboldening racists. 

Senior Conservatives kept telling us of “outsiders” threatening our way of life, with an emphasis on Muslims, and asylum seekers and other immigrants.  

 

‘It was Musk who inflamed an already incendiary situation by tweeting of the UK, “Civil war is inevitable”’

 

Sara Khan, their social cohesion adviser, pointed out that, when in government, the Tories repeatedly glossed over the danger of far-right extremism 

Also, within their counter-extremism strategy, they continually redefining extremism, to exclude the bigoted elements in its own base, preferring to focus on environmental protesters and peaceful campaigners contesting the unfolding genocide in Gaza. At the same time the police were warning that far right was the fastest-growing terrorism threat in the UK. 

To support this agenda, the government promoted and entertained political extremists who were obsessed with Muslims and the “clash of civilisations” narrative beloved of the far right. 

Within this, there was Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, falsely claimed that Britain was “sleepwalking into a ghettoised society”, and that “Islamists … are in charge now.” 

Their policies were typical of hard-right politician of the last 100-yrs, sow discord and find scapegoats to distract from the devastation of their policies. 

As a scapegoat asylum seekers and other immigrants were perfect, they provided a distraction from the failure of Brexit, and could be blamed for a whole series of crises caused by government policy; the lack of housing, an overwhelmed NHS, crumbling schools. The use of scapegoats is simply pathetic, it does nothing to solve ongoing problems, it just provides small-minded people with a target for their frustrations.  

 

‘provides small-minded people with a target for their frustrations’  

 

Aiding and abetting this scam was the media led by the Mail and the Telegraph, but also, the BBC who give airtime to Farage and other right-wing extremists. As a result, Farage became a major public figure, and others such as Johnson and Rees-Mogg, were given the oxygen required to further their careers. 

Aside from Elon Musk and “X”, there is also Paul Marshall, the right-wing millionaire who owns the website “UnHerd” and part-owns GB News. Whilst Marshall has denied endorsing Musk’s comments about civil war, he has he engaged with several posts from far-right accounts predicting civil war, including one that stated, with staggering historical ignorance: “Civil war is coming. There has never been a country that has remained peaceful with a sizeable Islamic presence.” 

A point that needs amplifying is that whilst the right shouts loudest it is a minority. 

While concerns about migration levels have been high at times this century, aided by our failure to build the housing and infrastructure to support an increasing population, there has been a continual progressive shift in attitudes to identity and race. In 2013, just 25% said being born in Britain wasn’t important to being “truly British”; now it is 54%. Whilst only 3% of us think you need to be white to be “truly British”. 

As I have written continuously, there is overwhelming inequality in the country, however that shouldn’t be seen as either a motivations or excuses for the riots. They were not born of the “legitimate grievances” of  poverty, underinvestment leading to the breakdown of basic services. Neither were these grievances caused by mass immigration. In the towns where riots occurred everyone shares these grievances about poverty and underinvestment, only a few saw it as an opportunity and were manipulated by those we see those few as their stormtroopers 

 

‘It isn’t immigration that has made Britain one of the most unequal countries in Europe’

 

It isn’t immigration that has made Britain one of the most unequal countries in Europe, it is 40-yrs of failed economic experiments, and 14-yrs of austerity. Real wages have not increased since 2008 and the lowest-income British households are 20% poorer than the lowest-income families in France.  

Ideological failures abound; Thatcherism limited the ability of local authorities to use income generated from the sale of council houses to build new properties, there was the ideologically driven impoverishment of local government by the Cameron-Osborne government and the self-inflicted wound of Brexit. These, and other factors are what lay behind our ailing public services and social housing.  

Rather than disdaining immigrants we should embrace them; they populate much of the NHS, and, if we are to build the targeted new homes, we will need skilled immigrants. 

For too long Tory politicians and the defenders in the media have avoided the collective blame for their failings. Brexit has been a disaster, and was always based on an economic fairytale, but the blame was passed to remoaners and those that sought to destroy their pet policy. Now they are sidestepping responsibility for the long-term consequences of their short-term electoral strategies. 

 

‘Brexit has been a disaster, and was always based on an economic fairytale’

 

As the party’s former co-chairwoman Baroness Sayeeda Warsi said 3-years ago; “dog whistles win votes but destroy nations.” 

You would hope that after such a humbling electoral defeat the Tories would consider why the electorate rejected them. If that has happened they have reached the wrong conclusion.  

Whilst the country doesn’t want more of the same, they appear to be doubling down. 

Robert Jenrick, a prospective leader, claimed in parliament, without evidence: “We have allowed our streets to be dominated by Islamist extremists.”  

Their shadow policing minister, Matt Vickers, and Jenrick have both criticised Keir Starmer, with Jenrick saying the PM “has made a mistake in that he has not shown equal treatment to all forms of violence perpetrated by whoever it is, wherever it is in the country”.  

Another leadership hopeful, Tom Tugendhat, said Keir Starmer failed the country during the recent violent disorder in England and Northern Ireland. In fairness, Tugendhat has also criticised Nigel Farage for amplifying false information, and said he had been “deeply irresponsible and dangerous” in trying to amplify “false information”. He also hit out at Farage for condemning the breakdown of law and order before the riots “but not the riots themselves”.  

There is a history of Tory racism, perhaps most famously in 1968 when Enoch Powell made his infamous “rivers of blood” speech. Powell was promptly sacked by the PM, who said of the speech that it was “racialist in tone and liable to exacerbate racial tensions”.  

Heath’s action set the tone for future Conservative politicians, creating an unofficial frontier where reasonable demands for robust immigration control crossed into dangerous rabble-rousing. There does however appear to be a school of thought that sees good immigrants as the ones who came in the past, while the latest arrivals are the wrong sort, making bogus claims for asylum and jumping the queue for jobs and services. 

 

‘A school of thought that sees good immigrants as the ones who came in the past, while the latest arrivals are the wrong sort’

 

Whilst the electorate still appear to adhere to Heath’s immigration ideas, the Tories have continued to tack further rightwards. The catalyst for this has been the rise of Farage and the inroads he made into the traditional Tory voter. As this continues, each generation of Tory leadership hopefuls seem to believe that the only was to counter his influence is by being more right-wing than him, hence their dread of small boat crossings, which they describe as an “invasion” and a “swarm” by Conservative MPs. 

It is therefore hardly surprising that a poll last week of the Popular Conservatives found  that 24% favoured Jenrick, with Badenoch on 23.4% and Patel on 21%. Whereas the moderates such as Cleverly was on 5%, Tom Tugendhat at 3% and Stride on 2%. 

Farage aside, another issue for the Tories is demographics. An initial review of where 2019’s votes went found that 1.4 million Tory voters had died. The number of Labour voters who died during the same period was 400,000, but unlike the Tories, Labour voters keep renewing themselves as more young people come of voting age. 

 

‘Another issue for the Tories is demographics. An initial review of where 2019’s votes went found that 1.4 million Tory voters had died’

 

The Times estimates that by 2029, 1.2 million people who voted Tory in 2024 will have died; that number for Labour is 500,000. According to these figures, Labour’s voters will be more than replaced by 800,000 new younger voters. Only 160,000 of those who come of age by 2029 are projected to vote Conservative. This suggests the party is literally dying. 

Whereas Labour voters are regenerating, Tory policies have meant that voters are not moving to the right as they grow older.  In order to address that demographic’s concerns, the party risk alienating its coalition of older, propertied voters who have stuck with it out of a mix of stubborn loyalty, fear of younger people and what they represent, and incentives such as the triple lock on pensions and winter fuel allowance payments. 

If the party abandons social conservative positions on issues such as immigration and trans rights, whilst it might attract younger voters of tomorrow, it would likely see a chunk of their electorate defect to Reform. Given that they have already lost 25% of their 2019 votes to Reform, and they will be reluctant to lose more. 

After all these reflections there needs to be a conclusion: Britain is a country where the conditions are ripe to be exploited by the far right. 

 

‘Britain is a country where the conditions are ripe to be exploited by the far right’

 

This has been years in the making and the warning signs became obvious after the GFC, even though the problems can be traced back to Thatcherism. The poor have got poorer and the richer have become richer. 

Last week, the Resolution Foundation published a report showing that regional inequalities have not narrowed at all in the past 25-years. Child poverty has got worse: in 2014-15, 19 of the 20 child poverty hotspots were in London, but by 2022-23, only three remained in the capital, with the rest split between the NW and West Midlands. 

There have been no riots or attacks on asylum seekers in the home counties. There people have well-paid jobs and comfortable lives. If there is overseas investment these are the sort of prosperous places where it will go. 

There is a reason why the riots were in place such as Rotherham, Middlesbrough, Stoke-on-Trent or Hartlepool. These are the type of towns most in-need of the boost that overseas investment provides. These are all classic examples of post-industrial Britain, towns where the local economy was devastated by Thatcherism’s free market economics, and the double whammy that was Cameron / Osborne’s cruel and unnecessary austerity. 

This, coupled with a flatlining of real wages post the GFC, a cost of living crisis and legal migration reaching a record level in 2022, left these towns at breaking point. They voted for Brexit in the expectation their lot would improve, and 3-yrs later they were again seduced by Johnson and his promise to “level-up”. As a result their faith and respect for both government and the police is at rock bottom. Asylum seekers and migrants have been used by right-wing politicians as scapegoats for these people’s discontent.  

Whilst none of this justifies the violence, it is, as history shows, an almost inevitable consequence of successive failed economic and governmental experiments. 

Locking-up the hardcore might be justified, but it does nothing to address the underlying problems. It isn’t the one throwing the bricks who are the long-term problem, it is those standing-by we need to worry about.  

According to YouGov, a third of Britons support the protests against migrants and 7% are sympathetic to the rioters and believe the unrest is ‘completely justified’.  

When asked what is to blame for the rioting, 69% of respondents cite the news media and 67% say immigration policy. 47% say Nigel Farage. 

There are very clear economic and social factors at play in the events of recent weeks.  

To borrow a phrase, the government needs to be tough on riots, tough on the causes of riots. 

 

 

 

“Look at the hate we’re breeding 

Look at the fear we’re feeding” 

 

 

This really does feel like one of those “I told you so” moments.

I really take no pleasure in being right, but so much of what these columns have been about for the last 6-yrs has come to pass in the last 2-weeks.

Rent a mob will always be just that. They haven’t moved on and never will. What has happened is that they have become the stormtroopers of a new age of right-wing agitators. To call them politicians gives them too much credit, they are little more than troublemakers pursuing their own ends.

What should surprise but doesn’t, is the fact that the oldies, Tory and Reform alike, are falling for the very thing that they “fought against” 80+ years ago. I put fought against in inverted commas as most were too young, but when did age get in the way of a good story.

Where we go is unclear. Starmer has a vast majority, a mandate for change. The question is can he deliver? If he doesn’t we can expect more of the same, more unrest.

Successful government requires proper opposition. If the Tories are going to continue as a Reform tribute act Farage will become the voice of the opposition. A truly unpleasant thought.

Lyrically my thoughts are clear. We start with “Reflections” by Diana Ross and the Supremes. To end we have  “Civil War” by Guns N’ Roses. Enjoy!

Philip.

 

@coldwarsteve

 

        

Philip Gilbert is a city-based corporate financier, and former investment banker.

Philip is a great believer in meritocracy, and in the belief that if you want something enough you can make it happen. These beliefs were formed in his formative years, of the late 1970s and 80s

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