Thread by @OwenJones84

What we are witnessing in England is a mixture of a far-right racist riot, pogrom and terrorist insurgency.

It has been whipped up by our media and political elites for decades.

Some of those decrying this horror played their part in making it happen.

As our politicians presided over crumbling public services, the trashing of secure jobs, an escalating housing crisis, and falling living standards, it was convenient for both political elites and media outlets to whip up anti-migrant hostility.

That anti-migrant hostility specifically merged with Islamophobia, which has been incessantly whipped up since 9/11 in particular.

British Muslims have been treated as dangerous and disloyal foreigners in their own land, while migrants and refugees are teated as hostile invaders

Tory Islamophobia is rampant and institutional.

Baroness Sayeeda Warsi - the most prominent Muslim Tory politician - warned it was a problem "from top to bottom."

She told me that Michael Gove had played a key role in driving in.

theguardian.com/politics/2019/…

When Sadiq Khan ran for London Mayor - and became Europe's most senior Muslim politician - Zac Goldsmith ran a poisonous Islamophobic campaign against him

Since then, Sadiq Khan has been an obsessive target for the Islamophobic right.

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

When Boris Johnson compared Muslim women wearing the veil to "letterboxes" and "bankrobbers", there was a 375% surge in hate crimes against British Muslims.

theguardian.com/politics/2019/…

Far right extremists embraced Boris Johnson when he became PM.

Far right thugs chanted "We love you, Boris", and Tommy Robinson and Britain First - whose chief targets are Muslims - endorsed him.

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

The Tory MP Nusrat Ghani claimed after she was sacked as a minister, she was told it was because her Muslim faith was "making colleagues feel uncomfortable."

After a Tory inquiry cleared him of ruling breaking, Ghani allies feared a cover-up.

theguardian.com/politics/2023/…

There is relentless evidence of Tory councillors posting anti-Muslim bile online.

Many of them were suspended and later quietly reinstated.

theguardian.com/politics/2019/…

Polling repeatedly shows that the Tory membership is viciously Islamophobic.

More than half of Tory members think Islam is a threat to the "British way of life", while over half believe conspiracy theories about parts of European cities under sharia law.

theguardian.com/politics/2024/…

Protests over Israel's genocides have brought Tory Islamophobia to the fore.

Explaining why there were so few arrests over protests, Braverman claimed it was because Islamists were in charge, rather than protests being overwhelmingly peaceful.

telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/…

Lee Anderson had the Tory Whip removed after claiming Sadiq Khan was under the control of Islamists, but Tory MPs came to his defence.

Lee Anderson, of course, defected to Reform, and is now Reform MP for Ashfield.

bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

The official Leave campaign in 2016 was dominated by Tories, and was unapologetically and flagrantly Islamophobic.

The campaign falsely claimed Turkey was about to join the EU, and Brits were at risk from Turks.

theguardian.com/politics/2016/…

One poster highlighted 5 supposed soon-to-be EU members (8 years on, none have joined).

It then highlighted Syria and Iraq on the map. Not so much a dog whistle as a foghorn. Leave.EU

Nigel Farage was notoriously responsible for the most incendiary intervention, standing in front of a poster of Syrian refugees with the slogan BREAKING POINT.

He later warned he'd "don khaki, pick up a rifle and head for the front lines" if Brexit wasn't delivered.

The Brexit campaign was fought overwhelmingly on immigration, with Islamophobia a strong theme.

So little wonder bigots faced emboldened after the result, and celebrated with hate crimes - often with Muslims as targets.

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

Nigel Farage - an ally of Donald Trump, an Islamophobic pin-up - declared just this year that growing numbers of British Muslims don't share "British values".

theguardian.com/politics/artic…

But Labour, too, has its own outrageous record on Islamophobia.

Its own involvement in the calamities of Iraq and Afghanistan - in which hideous war crimes were committed against Muslims - radicalised some Muslims.

This radicalisation was then explained as inherent to Islam.

The so-called 'War on Terror' meant increased police powers and anti-terror legislation which disproportionately targeted and stigmatised young Muslim men in particular.

Its Prevent programme has been described as a "thought police" targeting Muslims.

amnesty.org.uk/files/2023-11/…

When, in 2006, Jack Straw declared he was uncomfortable with veil wearing Muslim women, which he called a "visible statement of separation and of difference".

It triggered an avalanche of Islamophobia in the media, and reported linked hate crimes.

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

Labour's immigration minister Phil Woolas ran a vile Islamophobic campaign against the Lib Dems in the 2010 election.

A notorious leaflet shamelessly attacked the Lib Dems as wanting to give rights to "illegal immigrants", who were clearly shown as Islamist extremists.

The emails exchanged between his campaign team including calls to make the "white vote angry" by going hard on the "militant Moslem angle".

After his election win was overturned in the courts on the grounds he'd lied about his opponents, Labour MPs rallied to his defence.

In the aftermath of the Brussels terrorist attack, Tony Blair declared "many millions" of Muslims had an outlook that is "fundamentally incompatible with the modern world."

ibtimes.com/tony-blair-cla…

When Tony Blair called for the West to ally with Vladimir Putin against Islamist extremism, it was revealing: both had overseen mass slaughters of Muslims from Iraq to Chechnya, and had a shared incentive in portraying Muslims as a violent rabble.

middleeasteye.net/news/tony-blai…

What, then, of Labour more recently.

It's not commented on enough, but Jeremy Corbyn was often demonised for his perceived proximity to Muslim communities, portrayed as they were as hotbeds of antisemitism and extremism.

In the 2021 Batley and Spen by-election, Keir Starmer's Labour unashamedly embraced Islamophobia.

A Labour official briefed that Muslim voters were turning on the party because Keir Starmer was taking on antisemitism: i.e. Muslim voters were antisemitic.

After Labour narrowly won in Batley and Spen in 2021, a "campaign source" bragged they'd built a new coalition, losing the "conservative Muslim vote over gay rights and Palestine" while winning 2019 Tory voters.

Gay rights never came up on the doorstep.

https://x.com/elenicourea/status/1410882523693977606

After broadcaster Trevor Phillips was suspended from Labour before Starmer's victory for referring to Muslims as "a nation within a nation", Starmer's Labour reinstated him.

theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/j…

In 2019, former Blair advisor Philip Collins wrote that Labour's antisemitism was a much bigger problem than Tory Islamophobia.

He went on to become Keir Starmer's speechwriter.

After Keir Starmer hired esteemed Black barrister Martin Forde KC after leaked abusive messages from Labour officials, Forde exposed a "hierarchy of racism" in which "anti-Black racism and Islamophobia is not taken as seriously as antisemitism" by Labour.

theguardian.com/politics/2023/…

Martin Forde KC declared Labour wasn't engaging with this "hierarchy of racism".

Meanwhile, a @LabourMuslims poll in 2022 found a quarter of Muslim members had experienced Islamophobia, and a third of Muslim members had witnessed it.

Crucially, 39% of Muslim Labour members and supporters strongly disagreed that Labour represented the Muslim community, 24% agreed.

Just 12% agreed and 5% strongly agreed.

The polling specifically found Labour Muslim supporter trust in Starmer had collapsed - by 2022.

When largely Muslim Labour councillors quit Labour in disgust at Labour's support for Israel's genocide, one Labour sourced briefed the party was "shaking off the fleas".

And Labour's contempt for the value of largely Muslim Palestinian life couldn't be clearer.

After Labour gutted a SNP motion holding Israel to account for "collective punishment", both the Speaker and Labour spread the message it was because of a threat to Labour MPs' safety.

This was widely understood as meaning Muslim protesters, triggering a wave of Islamophobia.

In the 2024 election, Labour's support amongst Muslim voters - normally a core Labour vote - went into collapse.

In the 21 constituencies where 30% or more of the population are Muslim, the Labour vote dropped from an average of 65% in 2019 to just 36% in 2024.

Labour was defeated by four independent candidates in communities with large Muslim populations.

After Labour lost white voters in the 'Red Wall', it promised to listen and learn.

This time it responded by claiming the party had been cheated.

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

By claiming it had lost because of bullying and harassment - claims it has failed to substantiate - Labour fuelled a toxic image of dangerous, threatening Muslims.

Whether protesting or voting "the wrong way", Muslim engagement with the democratic process was demonised.

It is striking, too, that when Labour suspended candidate Faiza Shaheen, it raised her speaking out about Labour Islamophobia as part of the supposedly damning evidence.

https://x.com/faizashaheen/status/1796242335027565019

As well as our political elites, our media outlets have systematically fanned Islamophobic bile.

A 2019 study found that 59% of media coverage of Muslims was negative.

That rose to 78% with the Mail on Sunday.

theguardian.com/news/2019/jul/…

In 2011, a Daily Star journalist resigned after revealing that the newspaper deliberately got its reporters to lie about Muslims, stoking up hatred.

theguardian.com/media/2011/mar…

When The Sun newspaper did a front page splash deceiving its voters by claiming 1 in 5 Muslims had sympathy for jihadis like ISIS, it was forced to print a correction - but only months later, and on page 2.

theguardian.com/media/2016/mar…

When The Times did front page splashes about "Christian child forced into Muslim foster care", it stoked Islamophobic bigotry.

The copy emphasised "white Christian child".

It was forced to print a correction months later - but the damage was done.

theguardian.com/media/2018/apr…

These are just two examples of anti-Muslim deceit whipped up by our newspapers, with devastating consequences.

The truth is the British press has been whipped up anti-Muslim bile for years, portraying Muslims as a dangerous hostile enemy within.

Britain is a cauldron of resentment because, brutally speaking, social progress ground to a halt after the 2008 financial crash, and life has been defined by insecurity for millions.

Whipping up Islamophobia in that context has redirected anger with devastating effect.

The truth is that Islamophobia is rampant, mainstream and respectable in this country.

That's how we've ended up with three hideous murders in which the suspect is not even Muslim (not that the current horror would be acceptable if he was) led to an Islamophobic pogrom.

Our mainstream politicians and media outlets have whipped up and made Islamophobia respectable for a very long time, helping to radicalise a significant layer of the population, who increasingly believed they had a license to act on their hatred.

Yes, Elon Musk and Twitter are clearly playing their role.

But those focusing on Musk and social media at the exclusion of other factors are doing so because they know it would expose their own responsibility.

Right now, Muslims are not the only target, of course.

All people of colour in Britain have been placed at heightened risk. Many now feel scared to leave their homes. Many don't even feel safe in their homes.

The rest of us have a responsibility to show meaningful solidarity.

Those believing far right extremism can be defeated by the justice system are, at best, delusional.

This is a political problem. A racist British Establishment which delights in finding scapegoats for problems it causes is to blame. They did this. This is on them.

Many of the "centrists" applauded Starmer's victory on the grounds politics would become boring again and a lost "normality" were return.

They were painfully naive and never understood the turmoil that existed within British society.

https://x.com/Anna_Soubry/status/1809587387816612173

We need two things:

- an all-out war on racist scapegoating, which means taking on our media and political establishments

- an all-out war on economic and social insecurity which far right extremists exploit by redirecting anger at the wrong targets

Finally, a message for the far right extremists terrorising Muslims and people of colour.

You are going to be defeated. You will lose. Your hatred of a society that is diverse and inclusive will never match our determination to fight for one that truly is.

Sorry for the unbelievably long thread. I was away for my birthday / stag do and, well, had things to say!