We’ll start with the proximate:
As mobs attempt to burn down hotels housing asylum seekers, don’t forget Nigel Farage led a campaign to publicise these hotels. He recorded himself turning up at a series of them in 2020 and asked his followers to identify more hotels, saying some residents “might be ISIS”.
Then let’s move backwards:
First there’s been a lot of anti-Muslim propaganda thru the years, including entire TV and movie eras where the most common villains.
Second is a sustained right wing campaign complaining about demographic replacement and stating that immigrants are more likely be criminals than natives.
Third is the fact that Britain has been bringing in massive numbers of immigrants when there isn’t enough housing, driving up prices and leading to homelessness.
Fourth is that the the UK has been in decline for over forty years. A lot of people are hurting. There aren’t enough good jobs, yet somehow the government is allowing in record numbers of immigrants.
When I was young I said to my father that I didn’t see a lot of racism. He, a child of the Great Depression, replied, “wait till times are bad.”
The “other”, the immigrant, is always an easy target. The actual villains are the UK’s ruling class and if violence is the method then the correct response would be to Bastille them, but people are rarely capable of understanding that their most profound enemies are those who rule them. Putin is not a significant danger to Americans or Brits: their own politicians and corporate leaders are responsible for their poverty, increasing death rates, sickness and homelessness.
If you want a good country again, figure out a way to replace your leadership class wholesale. Nothing else will work, certainly not burning hotels with powerless immigrants in them. That’s pathetic and stupid, on top of being immoral.
Be better and be smarter.
Oakchair
The actual villains are the UK’s ruling class…
If you want a good country again, figure out a way to replace your leadership class
——
I wonder if at some level most people understands that we’re in a 1984 level dystopia. It is far too late for replacing the leadership class to ever happen outside of a 1 in 1,000 year event.
Some respond to this condition by getting along to get along.
Some respond by hurting those who are weaker.
Some respond by suicide, or soaking their brains in drugs.
And so on.
When courageous, smart, and moral options are seen as inevitable failures, when everyone is neurologically damaged and poisoned, when the psychopathic ruling class controls every institution it would be surprising if these types of events were not occurring.
mago
Bastille as a verb. I like it. Ain’t gonna happen anytime soon, alas and alack.
The downtrodden just can’t seem to connect the dots and realize that the warm yellow stream falling on their heads comes from their leaders and not those others.
But you already said that. On a roll these days. Keep it coming.
bruce wilder
Calling those opposed to your policy “racist” or “anti-semitic” has become remarkably convenient.
The rioters are even more powerless politically than the hapless immigrants. The immigrants got to Britain after all — that’s political power in action. Both pawns I suppose in the larger game, really. And, I don’t think the rioters blame the immigrants, but the immigrants are the ones they can get hold of. Voting certainly has no effect. Brexit was supposed to free Britain to govern immigration and the Tories were pledged to limit immigration, no?
No one in Britain in position of legal or political authority owns up to what immigration policy is. The same is true in the U.S. The Biden Administration radically increased rates of immigration and the levers they used to do so are scarcely considered worthy of naming or reporting. Instead, the issue is the threat of deporting the millions who were admitted illegally.
Purple Library Guy
Oakchair says a 1 in 1,000 year event. Hey, it’s climate change–we’re getting those every 5 years or so.
Vegetius
Psuedo-marxian deflection: the last refuge of failed ideology.
The invaders must be physically removed — the natives were never asked to improve their importation and therefore the presence of non-natives is illegitimate and immoral.
The elite who unleashed this invasion on the free peoples of the West must be liquidated with extreme predudice.
GrimJim
Damn Vortigern!
He invited in Hengist and Horsa, and now the whole countryside is covered in illegal Anglo, Saxon, and Jute immigrants and their families. Someone needs to do something about this!
Next thing you know they’ll let the bloody French in, and we all know how that will turn out…
capelin
Zionists.
https://xcancel.com/Tracking_Power/status/1819696060941627553#m
David Miller @Tracking_Power Aug 3
What’s causing the Islamophobic riots across the UK, and why now?
1. The riots have been instigated by the Zionist asset Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (‘Tommy Robinson’), who has been working for the State of Israel since 2009 as part of the so-called ‘counterjihad’ Islamophobia movement established by that state. When his organisation, the English Defence League, was incorporated in 2011, two years after its inception, it was named the English & Jewish Defence League. The Jewish Defence League, a Zionist terrorist organisation, has been a key part of violent Islamophobic street thuggery in the UK over the past decade.
–
someofparts
From my experience, upper class Brits have a bone-deep sense of class superiority. Of course I’m sure US citizens in the upper economic classes do too, and more so each passing day. But to me the British version of economic/cultural snobbery felt more implacable. I don’t see a good outcome for any nation that is ruled by such people.
In his book Water Music, T G Boyle does a fictional treatment of all this. It is about an imaginary British expedition to discover the source of the Nile. There are plenty of starving sailors willing to sign on and they all get killed by the end of the trip. Afterward, the leaders of the expedition, who kept a sheltered distance from the dangers during the journey, returned to the Geographic society and reported the mission as a great success.
someofparts
Forgot to add – the title Water Music refers to music played for the king as he wafted down the Thames on his royal barge, ignoring the starving citizens watching him from the shore.
Ian Welsh
GrimJim: you joke, but the Norman invasion really screwed things up in ways England is still feeling. Saxon culture was a lot more egalitarian.
Dermot O Connor
Vegetius, hearing a BritNat complaining about people invading the countries of others would be amusing, were it not so sinister. Not funny when the invasion shoe is on the other foot, eh? I guess now you know how your Imperial subjects felt.
Forecasting Intelligence
Its complex but driven by the rage of the white working classes.
Their communities have been transformed by legal migration over the last generation (in a way that more posher middle class places haven’t – Bath remains overwhelmingly a white and very middle class city).
They tend to be the places the state dumps illegal migrants (often young men from the most troubled and violent parts of the world). These places are already deprived and this is just adding to the burden.
We also have long-standing issues within elements of the Muslim community – again, look at the scandals involving organised Asian gangs that abused and raped vulnerable young white girls for decades and authorities did nothing to stop it.
Throw in a sense of despair, economic deprivation and the failure of successive governments to get a grip on borders, stop the boats and control legal migration and you have all the ingredients of a riot.
Mark Level
Thank you, capelin, you called it!! Richard Medhurst also put out info yesterday on Mr. “Yaxley Lennon” aka “Tommy Robinson,” & his blaming the murder of 3 children by a psychopathic Brit on “Muslims.” This is picked up by the racist yobs who are the inheritors of the long-running British fascist far-right.
As of yesterday, the #s of dead and injured were not yet at the levels of the average soccer riot perpetrated by similar folks, but that could change.
But that is only half the explanation, those who light the torch. Oakchair provides the other half of the equation. The Brit Ruling class brings in massive #s of refugees from the US’s worldwide war to work for far lower wages. This ramps up ethnic hatred, & it’s always easier to punch down for people near the bottom . . .
I have been pro-immigration nearly all my life until recently. Obviously I will not adopt ethnic hatred or white nationalism, nor join MAGA. However, the divide-and-conquer rulers across “the West” use this as a deliberate strategy to lower wages & have the poor fight the poorer & more vulnerable, so their looting goes unchallenged.
AND, there’s more!! Of course: “Sir” Keir Starmer called for more mass surveillance (which glorious Albion already leads the world in) & making sure “these people” “can’t get on a train”, can have their meager assets frozen or stolen, etc. It’ll start with “these people,” perhaps (not Mr. “Robinson”/ Lennon of course or his IDF buddies), but anybody who is calling for less economic inequality will be next.
I’m damn glad my Irish ancestors got driven out in the late 19th century. The UK was the center for cruel Empire & genocide for centuries, now it’s a shithole in economic decline turning its own people against one another. When everything is about hierarchy & violence, the conclusion seems inevitable. And they get some of the world’s shittiest weather (& food) as well. What’s not to shun and avoid? Sometimes karma proves real.
Jan Wiklund
Replacing the leadership class is something our great-grandparents were reasonable good at.
But they understood that it wasn’t enough rioting in the streets, one needed long-standing but militant unions (and other class-organizations) with mass-membership, which were able to raise tough and intelligent people who could take over the reins.
Mary Bennet
Vegetius, “The invaders must be physically removed.” Here in the USA, hows about we start with the Oxbridge third-raters, the Tina Browns and Derbyshires, et. al. who show up in Manhattan with letters of introduction from Lady So-and-so or The Hon. Somebody Else and get slotted right into high prestige media perches where they can demonstrate their well bred ignorance of American life, history and culture.
bruce wilder
Just noting how many in the commentariat enjoy an opportunity for snark and to enjoy a moment of class superiority.
The lowly deplorables are not the only ones to have difficulty fixing their attention on their true class enemy or forming respectful understanding of precarity in a society managed by a predatory state.
Mark Level
I second Mary Bennett– boot the likes of Tory-racist John Derbyshire back to Albion where they belong. Let him “enjoy” the poverty, racism & inequality he’s advocated for his entire 79 years as well as the crappy weather.
Also, too bad that starting with Reagan, the original prohibitions against Americans taking honorary titles & such piffle from foreign monarchies, oligarchies & corrupt toadies were all swept away. Anyone who has “dual loyalty” to Old Europe or Zionist oligarchies should walk the walk & leave the US as well (unless a few of them have the integrity to flush such garbage down the toilet or into the nearest landfill.)
Is Sebastian Gorka still lurking in the US, cheering for 19th century Hungarian fascism & wearing his medals while speaking condescendingly in the Etonian tones of the ruling class? Send him to Britain, Hungary is too good for him.
someofparts
I posted late at night when I was tired. Now, in the morning with fresh energy, I see that I missed the whole conversation.
I’m in Atlanta where we have a large black middle class which includes some of my neighbors. A couple of them have mentioned this story and wondered if I had any idea what was up. Now I have an answer for them. Thanks.
Feral Finster
The british race riots are happening because it provides a useful vent to frustrations british slavishness towards Israel and a deteriorating economic situation.
Best to keep the proles distracted and fighting one another.
Feral Finster
@ mago: “The downtrodden just can’t seem to connect the dots and realize that the warm yellow stream falling on their heads comes from their leaders and not those others.
But you already said that. On a roll these days. Keep it coming.”
The downtrodden never do. Their rulers make damn sure of it, and they also buy off, co-opt those who start to get wise, and neutralize those who won’t take the hint.
Feral Finster
@Vegaetius:
“The elite who unleashed this invasion on the free peoples of the West must be liquidated with extreme predudice.”
What “free peoples of the West”?
someofparts
As to UK history in Norman invasion period – if there are any links to good sources where I could learn more about this I would love to see them. Ian’s remark about the Norman influence has me curious now.
Failed Scholar
I think it’s obvious by now that ‘immigration’ is yet another neoliberal scam inflicted on the public, the whole point being to immiserate the working classes of the countries that the immigration scam is imposed on. We see it over and over and over again wherever it is enacted. Our “”””elites”””” are addicted to the steady flow of cheap compliant labour – immigration is the ‘easy mode’ button for GeeDeePee, which our shitlib lords and masters just love so much. If they could figure out a way to get away with it, they would be dumping tens of millions of migrants into our communities every year, forever. Just Think of the GeeDeePee!
In Britain, people have voted to stop this, literally for decades now, to no avail. This article from just a month ago will tell you: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2024/jul/01/how-the-tory-war-on-immigration-backfired
“Since 2010, Conservative ministers have consistently promised to cut immigration and immigration has consistently soared. The political sleight of hand whereby ministers focus noisily on harsh policies designed to curb illegal immigration, while authorised migration quietly increases, was first attempted by Theresa May with her “hostile environment” policies, which led catastrophically to the Windrush scandal. Under Sunak, the same distraction technique has been attempted with his relentless focus on stopping small boats, with similarly poor results – the small boats were not stopped, and the immigration commitments were not met….Since 2010, Britain has had five Conservative prime ministers, all promising to reduce immigration…”
Same theme here, from a 2023 article: https://news.sky.com/story/net-migration-the-history-of-turmoil-within-the-tories-since-camerons-tens-of-thousands-pledge-12882189
Just endless lying lying lying. They promise one thing, deliver another every fucking time. Lying cunts all of them. No one voted to become a minority in their own communities, they consistently have voted for the exact opposite. “a riot is the language of the unheard”, but in this case they’ve been heard all right, many times, they have just been ignored, just like everywhere else NeoShitLibs run things.
And now, after literally decades of lying about it, the British political class is all Surprised Pikachu Face about it? A truly WhoCouldaNode moment.
Willy
Nothing describes a British rentier economy better than gangs of knackered chavs looking for an easy punchup. Gormless plonkers.
Easy for an American to say, I’ll admit. They’d rather vent frustrations on soft and obvious scapegoat targets than consider who or what’s actually behind it all, as if their own PTB would care, than to organize and target those PTB.
Come to think of it, that sounds like most Americans too. There’s something about punching above one’s own class that many don’t like.
If I was a hooligan, (preferably operating in the safety of a large mob) I’d go after the boggin dosh. But maybe that’s just me.
Failed Scholar
I have to say that it is absolutely hilarious to see just how rabid the UK establishment has turned trying to quell their bout of civil disorder. Apparently users posting ‘inaccurate social media posts’ will soon be jailed, but it’s all good folks, we love freedom and democracy, ‘Diversity is our strength’™, etc etc.
It must be an especially delicious time to be Chinese and watching the country that incessantly screams about freedom at you (eg: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/britain-criticises-erosion-freedoms-hong-kong-2023-01-12/ ) hauling grandmas off to the slammer for their FaceBorg posts, lmao
somecomputerguy
Britain was the probably the only EU country whose problems weren’t caused by EU membership.
Because they still have their own currency, the pound sterling, they can deficit spend their way out of their problems at any time.
Instead they did Brexit. Since it was never the problem to start with, it predictably made things worse.
But that is how successfully elites have curtailed talk about the real causes of Britains problems.
The riots, just like Brexit, are the result of decades of scapegoating the increasingly dire results of domestic policy, whenever possible, and refusal to discuss it otherwise.
Britain’s recovery from the financial crisis, was slower than it’s recovery from the Great Depression, when the policy was to do nothing.
Paul Krugman alleged that it is impossible to read this economic history, in any popular media anywhere in Great Britain.
British elites, like American elites, will do anything to keep economic issues off the table and out of the news.
The “Four Gs”; guns, gays, god (abortion) and green (the environment), were invented to be the new definition enlightened liberalism. That is because none of these issues offend rich people.
This was all invented to keep people from talking about economic issues. To take as much oxygen out of the room as possible for any other issues. To leave no time, if possible, to talk about anything else.
Just as in The U.S., all their problems are a result of domestic policy choices, and all their problems could be solved tomorrow by making different choices.