The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes
– Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare
When that font of knowledge, ex-Pretoria Boys High guru Elon Musk, predicted civil war in England unless the government got a grip on illegal immigration, people sat up and took note. His intervention followed anti-immigration riots across England this past week, triggered by the alleged murder of three little girls by a knife-wielding assailant whose parents were Rwandan immigrants.
The most important person to take note was Keir Starmer, the new prime minister, who dismissed Musk’s comments as without justification. Instead, his policy has been to crush the English “far-right thugs”, as he calls them, with overwhelming force, and arrest hundreds, instead of grappling with the actual immigration problem and stopping the boats. He appears to have no solution in sight, having abandoned the migrant control proposals of the previous government.
As is usual in such a fluid situation, with anti-immigrant riots breaking out in many villages and towns, reminiscent of the historic yellow vest protestors in France that turned violent, the news coverage is overwhelming and it is difficult to make sense of it all. Nonetheless, there are some golden threads pulling the narrative together.
A couple of letters in the press seemed to me to capture something of the matter. They are worth quoting. The remarks in Daily Telegraph (5 August 2024) include:
Unfortunately, the stabbing and murder of young girls in Southport was a spark that set alight a tinderbox situation in the UK. Rather like the killing of George Floyd in the States. The riots and looting that followed were also unacceptable then.
Why then did Starmer take the knee in support of what turned out to be a far-left movement (the founders subsequently arrested for fraudulently using millions of dollars raised for personal gain), yet when it happens in the UK, because the white working class have had enough of illegal immigration, he acts tough and brandishes them all as far-right thugs?
I’m not condoning what has happened for one second, but the hypocrisy and double standard of (the prime minister) is staggering.
And another:
The people in the illegal immigration hotels are innocent? They came here illegally on small boats; they gave criminals large sums of money; they left France, a safe country. They are far from innocent; the rioters just want something done about this injustice. Starmer is deaf to this state of affairs because he doesn’t have a clue how to “smash the gangs”. He doesn’t have the money to pay for illegals. Stop the boats, and the riots will go away. Empty the illegal immigrant hotels, return them to their home countries, and the riots will stop. It’s not rocket science. Get the unemployed into work, to do the work you think immigrants might do eventually when they are “processed”. Start acting like a PM or resign.
Severe violence
Meanwhile, Australia’s government has advised its citizens to avoid areas where protests are occurring, due to the potential for disruption and violence. Nigeria’s ministry of foreign affairs likewise warned nationals that the violence had “assumed dangerous proportions”. Malaysia’s High Commission said: “Malaysians residing in or travelling to the United Kingdom are urged to stay away from protest areas, remain vigilant and follow the latest updates and guidance provided by local authorities.” The Indonesian embassy in London advised its citizens in the UK to avoid large crowds and increase their vigilance.
Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, has also announced emergency security measures for mosques, but not churches or synagogues, giving rise to accusations of so-called two-tier policing, where the police appear to be soft-pedalling on demonstrations such as the pro-Palestinian marches last year (where Jews and others felt intimidated), but coming down hard on white English protestors.
The press, including the British Broadcasting Service (BBC), cannot agree on definitions. For example, when violent clashes broke out between anti-immigrant rioters and masked Muslim counter-protestors in a sixth day of unrest, the BBC reported the demonstrators as “far-right” groups and the Muslims as “anti-racist” groups, respectively, without identifying the latter, in fact, as a group of masked men waving Palestinian flags who attacked a pub.
Real questions
The real questions boil down to two, at the end of the day. The first was summed up by Donna Jones, the UK’s most senior police commissioner, who was reported in Daily Telegraph (6 August 2024) as below:
“I’ve spoken to people from both sides of the spectrum, and the only way to stem the tide of violent disorder is to acknowledge what is causing it,” Ms Jones said.
“While the Southport attacks on Tuesday were a catalyst, the commonality among the protest groups appears to be focused on three key areas: the desire to protect Britain’s sovereignty; the need to uphold British values; and, in order to do this, (the need to) stop illegal immigration.”
She said that arresting people was “treating the symptom and not the cause” and that the prime minister had questions to answer about how the new Labour government would tackle immigration and uphold British values.
Who are the rioters?
The second question is whether these anti-migrant demonstrations are a manifestation of English nationalism, like Welsh nationalism and Scottish nationalism, or is it simple bloody-mindedness, like you sometimes find at football matches? For that matter, was the recent violent Irish anti-migrant protest an example of Irish nationalism, or simply a protest by local people fed up with Dublin’s generosity towards asylum seekers, given the scarcity of homes? Is illegal immigration straining the quality of the mercy of the Irish in the same way as it seems to be doing in England? The convulsive reflex in the English body politic is very reminiscent of anti-migrant protests in Germany, France, Italy and elsewhere in Europe, where most nationalist movements are labelled “hard right” these days.
Nationalism, as we commonly understand it, is a potent force which has some common themes. A desire to preserve cultural and linguistic identity is one, a response to perceived economic and political marginalisation another. Then there are usually varying degrees of demand for autonomy and independence. The main differences between nationalist groups, especially in the case of Scottish, Welsh and English nationalism, is that they seek self-determination within democratic frameworks.
Of course, the ways in which they go about seeking such determination all come down to tactics and the degrees of violent protest which the nationalists are willing to go to. For example, the Irish waged an armed insurrection against the English in order to secure self-determination. Likewise, the Welsh nationalists launched their movement by way of actual sabotage on a Welsh military base in WWII, and then continued the practice of burning the homes of English settlers for 20 years in north, Welsh-speaking Wales, albeit with mixed results.
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English nationalism is a different animal – more nuanced and coexisting with British national identity, which is a more overarching concept. English nationalists feel that they have been let down by successive UK governments; they would like to assert Englishness and nostalgic English values. Their views align with stricter immigration control and a sceptical stance towards Europe.
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Welsh nationalists today, through their party Plaid Cymru, focus strongly on the Welsh language preservation and expansion, and Welsh heritage. They agitate for greater self-government, cultural recognition and eventual independence. Scottish nationalists pursue similar goals, and the Scottish National party have ended up being the main party in the Scottish government. Scottish voters have shown a strong preference for independence.
English nationalism is a different animal – more nuanced and coexisting with British national identity, which is a more overarching concept. English nationalists feel that they have been let down by successive UK governments; they would like to assert Englishness and nostalgic English values. Their views align with stricter immigration control and a sceptical stance towards Europe. Currently, they do not have a specific party to advance their cause, but one might argue that UKIP (UK Independence Party) and various new parties to the right of the conservatives, such as Reform, led by Nigel Farage, fit the bill.
Michael Peel, a former Financial Times correspondent, is quoted in his new book, What everyone knows about Britain (except the British), as saying: “[S]ome of the most grievous UK misapprehensions concern how the country is changing as a result of immigration.” He points out that people in Britain have exaggerated the number of immigrants in their mind, and therefore harsh policies have followed to control the inflow (albeit without much success). Peel also refers to the “Nostalgia Trap”, where official history has airbrushed the bad out of the narrative in favour of the good bits.
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Will this constitutional anomaly lead to bottled-up rage and frustration among English nationalists?
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The English nationalists are, in a sense, custodians of these good bits, the rose-tinted bits somehow harking back to a simpler Cider with Rosie kind of past. But, unlike the devolved parliaments of Wales and Scotland, where the nationalists can achieve their goals within a democratic framework, the English nationalists have no uniquely English parliament of their own. They are free only to elect representatives to a British parliament in the broad sense, whereas the Scots and Welsh elect MPs not only to their own national parliaments, but also to the British parliament.
Will this constitutional anomaly lead to bottled-up rage and frustration among English nationalists? Only time will tell, but clearly what is happening in England now is a very complicated story. It has certainly brought a swift end to Keir Starmer’s political honeymoon.
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