Thread by @RichardBentall

We need to have some clarity about the causes of the rioting over the past few days.

A 🧵about the rioters, the instigators (two fairly distinct groups of people), and the processes leading to the current unrest. 1/21

First, although this was triggered by the tragic deaths of three children in Southport, it is NOT a reaction to violent crime. Violent crime is at a historic low, as are child homicides, and neither correlates with immigration. 2/

So, if the rioters believe that our children are not safe, or that our streets and cities (and even Waitrose) are unsafe, it's not because it's true. It's because somebody told them it is so. 3/

Besides, the rioting IS a violent crime, and has involved numerous assaults on police officers, which would seem to be a pretty irrational way of complaining about violent crime. 4/

It is also claimed that the rioting is a way in which people are expressing their 'legitimate' concerns about immigration, which is arguably a polite way of saying that these are racist riots. 5/

In fact, people in Britain have, overall become more accepting of immigration in recent years, and the riots are mostly happening in areas with few migrants. 6/

https://x.com/RichardBentall/status/1661866359272136704

So if the rioters are angry about immigration, it must be because somebody is making them angry about immigration. 7/

Another trope going around is that this is a result of failed policies of the Labour government. FFS, they've been in power for only a month.

We know who benefits from suggesting that it's all Labour's fault. 8/

Even Dan Hodges understands that none of this can possibly be the fault of the Labour government. 9/

So it's pretty clear that the rioters have no understanding of the issues they claim to be rioting about. Apparently, we're not supposed to say they are thick but, let's be clear, they are. 10/

Intelligent people don't fall for obvious propaganda, burn down libraries, loot stores, assault police officers, throw bricks at nurses, or wreck their own communities.

The rioters are thick and they are gullible (possibly the fault of the education system TBF). 11/

Which leads me to the instigators of the riots, who are definitely not thick, and know exactly what they are doingdestabilise.

Who benefits from the current chaos?

Pretty much anyone who wants to destablise the Labour government....

Or who is greedy for power. 12/

They're the people who have been telling the gullible thick people that migrants will destroy our culture and are responsible for our soaring (but not actually soaring) violent crime rates:

Farage, Tice, Anderson, editors of the Mail and Express, and some complicit Tories /13

In understanding how this all fits together, a useful metaphor is viral transmission. Ideas are passed between and infect the minds of people in the same way that viruses are passed on (an old idea first proposed by the discoverer of malarial transmission Ronald Ross). 14/

The process starts with belief entrepreneurs like Tice and Farage. They don't even have to believe what they're selling. They just have to see that spreading the idea gives them an advantage. They are supported by huge numbers of useful idiots. 15/

Then there has to be a vector through which the ideas are transmitted. Social media has been described by Barbara Walter, civil war expert, as an accelerant that allows bad actors to rapidly create catastrophic dissent. 16/

Then there has to be receptive hosts. Generally, these are people who feel that their historic status is vulnerable. In the UK, it's nongraduate white men living in rural or deprived neighbourhoods (who actually do have some reason to feel resentful). 17/

Finally, the hosts must lack an immune system. In the case of beliefs, the immune system is the capacity for analytical thinking which, in turn, is fostered by education. 18/

How should society respond to this situation? In the short term, it is important that unrest is contained at the point where it is happening, which means arrests and harsh punishments for the rioters themselves. But that will not be enough. 19/

Something needs to be done about the belief entrepreneurs like Tice, Farage, etc. Not easy in a democratic society. It requires serious intelligence work to uncover any prosecutable acts, but also requires them to be aggressively challenged rather than courted by the media. 20/

We also need to find a way of regulating the internet. In the past I've been a free speech maximalist but there is now very strong research showing the social and psychological harms caused by social media and if we don't learn how to control it, it will destroy us. 21/END

Footnote #1: This short talk by @paulmasonnews is worth watching. Interesting description of far-right ideology and an explanation of why the riots are happening shortly after the Labour victory.

https://x.com/paulmasonnews/status/1820073549660324086