Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Sussex.
📧 d.wearing@sussex.ac.uk
Apr 14, 2023 • 18 tweets • 7 min read
I try to stay off twitter as much as possible. But the last fortnight has seen a bipartisan racist assault on the south Asian community, of which I am part. So as an academic with an interest in elite racism – but mostly just as a person - I feel I have to say something [thread]
It begins with the home secretary’s decision to validate and amplify one of the key animating obsessions of the far right, making false, racist and inciteful claims that put an entire community at risk theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Feb 11, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
In the 2010s there was a concerted campaign by many in the political centre - columnists, academics, MPs - to frame hostility to migrants as "legitimate concerns" which must be respected. They played a significant role in smoothing the path that brought us to this point.
Instead of contesting the racist demagoguery of right wing politicians and the gutter press, the centre effectively chose to legitimise it. This cemented a broad anti-migrant consensus which has been one of the key factors in the dark turn British politics has taken of late
Oct 27, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Indeed, and this is consistent with a pattern of racism against people of colour under the current leadership, as discussed here by the Guardian's Nesrine Malik
I grew up in the Tory heartlands. These horrible remarks are all too familiar
Racism is a key feature of British conservatism. Sunak has largely pandered to that, not challenged it. It's absurd to treat his rise to power as a win for people of colour
One day we will have a prime minister from an ethnic minority who has spent their life fighting to dismantle the structural racism at the core of British society. That would be something to celebrate. Today, a person like that wouldn't be accepted as a Tory MP, let alone PM
Oct 21, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
It should be a source of deep concern that - after 7 years of carnage in Yemen caused in large part by British arms - the TUC just voted for an expansion of the arms industry, against defence diversification, and made zero mention of Yemen in doing so congress.tuc.org.uk/c02-economic-r…
Report here with more details. This was GMB's motion (predictably), opposed by the NEU, CWU, PCS and TSSA, but carried thanks to Unite.
