Almost nobody asks brown and black Britons (settled over many decades, legitimate) how they feel about far-right, anti-migrant marches across the UK. Journalists seemingly only talk to white inhabitants. If suitably resentful about illegal and legal incomers, their views then get printed or broadcast. Resentment is catching. Even those who, hitherto, had no problems with different races and ethnicities are swept up in this momentum.
Increasing numbers of white Britons believe “they” – immigrants, migrants, refugees and asylum seekers – get all the houses, benefits and privileges, while natives go without. Many journalists fail to challenge these provably incorrect assertions and obsess about “forgotten” indigenous workless or working-class Britons. Ethnic minorities from those classes don’t feature, don’t matter. That pernicious racialised narrative is now accepted as the truth.
I once interviewed a local woman, Mrs T, for an article on how older people suffer when everything is online. She gave me tea and cake. When I bumped into her recently, she was mightily vexed: “Well, I’ll be voting for Restore. They’ll get rid of them coloured foreigners.” Like her, so many now want their country to become dazzlingly white again.
Neo-Nazis and career racists have generated seemingly unstoppable momentum – aided and abetted by opinion formers and politicians. They go on and on about the stolen entitlements of “true-born natives”, and minorities “erasing” the nation’s history and culture and diminishing its greatness. German far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) surged to victory this week in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, using such evocative messaging. France’s Marine Le Pen uses that script. And Nigel Farage exploits native grievances – some indisputable, others indefensible- to create social tensions and an atmosphere of extreme toxicity.
Those men in black with balaclavas marching through Dover shouting “stop the boats”, escorted nicely by police officers, threw many of us into a panic. They arrest pensioners for publicly supporting Palestine Action and let this happen? The claim that this was “spontaneous” adds insult to injury. This morning Bipin, my friend, a cardio surgeon, said to me: “Is it a code? Like those St George’s flags on lampposts? Are these are now British values? If so, you and I can never belong here.”
Burnham’s focus on the “left behind” is good and necessary. But why don’t such senior political figures vocally support those of migrant heritage in these volatile times? Some do occasionally recognise our contributions to the economy, health service and care sector. I find those acknowledgements increasingly irksome. We are not just productive machines. We have hinterlands, emotional attachments and human frailties. Public figures need to state clearly: “These people belong in these isles, they are us.” They don’t do that. That silence feels like betrayal.
Black and Asian contacts in Birmingham tell me the Reform conference made them uneasy and apprehensive. Here is one of them sharing their concerns: “Enoch Powell was one man who sowed racism. Now we have a whole movement. We cannot survive a Reform government. Where do we Caribbeans go now?” Another said: “The city has many problems, but felt safely multiracial. No longer. How many of my white friends secretly back Farage? [white people] only pretended to accept us. It breaks my heart”.
Much more of this pain and fear poured out. Many of my interviewees are poleaxed by individuals of colour who have joined Reform and become performatively racist and anti-immigrant. Zia Yusuf, promising mass deportations, is the most revolting of that lot. Unsurprisingly racism is rising again.
On Wednesday, the BBC reported on the increase in abusive and racist behaviour in the emergency department at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford – where my son was born. National data shows a similar trend across the health service. In the year ending March 2025, police recorded 137,550 hate crimes in England and Wales. More than two thirds, according to the Home Office, were racially motivated crimes. All decent Britons should be appalled by the normalisation of race, religion and ethnicity-based racisms, and that includes hatred of Jewish people, and the exploitation of white girls by many British Pakistani men in grooming gangs.
We need our white allies to speak up against these trends. I still believe the majority of them are with us, many because they have mixed-race or mixed-faith families. More urgently, elected leaders who believe in an inclusive, liberal democracy must fiercely oppose the Farage takeover. Otherwise, I dread to think what this country will become. Germany has taken the first step to neofascism. France may follow. Is that what you want for the UK?