United Kingdom heading towards a racist nightmare

[On 29 July 2024, a horrific racist attack took place in Southport, UK. A mass stabbing targeting young girls occurred at a dance studio in the Meols Cop area of Southport, Merseyside. Two girls died on the spot, six injured children and two adults were taken to hospital in critical condition, and the next day a third girl died. An 18-year-old youth named Axel Rudakubana was convicted of stabbing the three girls to death. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

This crime caused a nationwide uproar across the UK, and fake information spread online which led to riots throughout the country. It was falsely claimed that a Muslim asylum seeker was responsible for the killings. During this time, extremists attacked the police, shops, hotels used for asylum seekers, mosques and a library. Later, more than a hundred people were arrested.

One year after the incident, writer and filmmaker Tariq Mahmood wrote a report for international media outlet Al Jazeera. The report is being published here for the readers of Views Bangladesh:]

One year has passed since the Southport attack. After the attack, race riots broke out on the streets of the UK. False rumours spread that the attacker was a Muslim. Because of those rumours, enraged mobs attacked mosques, Muslim-owned shops, homes, and anyone they thought looked like a Muslim.

At the time of the riots, I was finishing my novel The Second Coming. The story is about a future England, where a Christian militia, inspired by English nationalism, takes over London, bans Islam, and sends Muslims to a refugee camp in Birmingham. While writing the final chapters, I realised how closely the dystopian future I had imagined resembled today’s reality.

In constructing this imagined world, I drew inspiration from the England of my childhood, where racist violence was a commonplace occurrence. Groups of white teenagers used to hunt for us after the pubs closed at night; they called it ‘Paki bashing’. Knife attacks or petrol bombings were routine. Right-wing parties—The National Front and the British National Party—frequently said that people like us, black or non-white 'foreigners', must be sent back.

Even going to school was frightening, as we had to pass through crowds of racist boys and girls. On the playground too, they would surround us and sing racist songs. I lost count of how many times I was beaten during my student life. Physical assault was regular—at school, on the street, inside and outside the pub. I used to live in East London then. Together with the youth of Brick Lane, we formed armed resistance against the racists. Not just in Brick Lane, but such scenes occurred across the country—the National Front and

held hundreds of marches, joined by white supremacist groups.

During this time, some of my friends were arrested on charges of ‘conspiring to make explosives’. We were caught trying to protect our neighbourhoods by filling milk bottles with petrol. This incident became known as the ‘Bradford 12’. The struggles of Brick Lane and Bradford were part of a broader movement whose central aim was to fight racial discrimination and right-wing terrorism.

The street violence back then was terrifying; but it stemmed mostly from the fringes of society. Although the ruling class was indirectly involved, there was no open association with these groups. In 1978, the leader of the Conservative Party, Margaret Thatcher, said: ‘People are really afraid, they feel that this country might be swamped by people with a different culture.’ Although once she became Prime Minister, she maintained some distance from these groups.

Today, that distance no longer exists. Top leaders, including Labour Party’s Keir Starmer, now routinely use right-wing rhetoric and promise strict measures against asylum seekers. Former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Home Secretary Suella Braverman were the same. Braverman falsely claimed that sexual exploitation gangs mainly consisted of British Pakistani men, whose values supposedly conflicted with British values.

The old white supremacist racism still exists, but today it has taken its ugliest form as Islamophobia. It seems the old ‘Paki-bashing’ gang has turned into a wave of religious crusaders, who see Islam as synonymous with terrorism, associate Pakistanis with sexual crimes, and portray asylum seekers as parasitic destroyers of the nation.

In this context, the Reform Party has emerged. Its simple but hateful rhetoric—Islamophobia and anti-immigration—has been presented to the public as a ‘truthful alternative’. Now they are ahead in the polls, with support at nearly 30 percent, while Labour stands at 22 percent and the Conservatives at 17 percent.

In this situation, as the anniversary of the riots is observed, The Economist published a survey that focuses not on economic recession or social decay but on racial issues. The survey shows that nearly 50 percent of people think multiculturalism is harmful, and 73 percent fear that new racial riots may erupt. The current violence in the country is a continuation of England’s colonial history. Today’s racism is born from that old imperialist ideology—that ‘the savages’ must be subdued, just as Britain once ruled its colonies. The racism that once united the empire has returned.

This ideology is now reflected in anti-Muslim attacks on the streets, suppression of Palestine supporters, the killing of children and destruction of hospitals in Gaza. Through its colonial past, Britain learned how to dehumanise populations, justify plunder, war and famine. That’s why today it stands alongside genocidal Israel.

In this context, people of all faiths and races have united. Although they could not stop the genocide, they have exposed the hypocrisy of the ruling class. Only this unity and anti-racist resistance can prevent the nightmarish future of my novel from becoming reality.