Home-thoughts, from abroad

I return to the UK tomorrow but what I'll find when I get there fills me with trepidation.

I can't get British TV here and don't possess a smartphone but I do listen avidly to BBC Sounds on iPlayer and catch various snippets that pop up throughout the day on Google Discovery. The news from Southport, and now other English towns and cities, is extremely depressing and the progress of the new Labour government is worrisome too, but I will have to wait until I get back to see what it actually feels like in reality.

I left under a Tory government and will return to a Labour one. I've already written about my thoughts on that subject so I'll reserve further judgment until I get some firsthand experience of it. I hope, though, not to encounter directly the shocking violence and race hatred that has reared its ugly head since the tragic killing of the three little girls in Southport. Viewed from abroad that has been truly appalling but it seems to be but the latest, and certainly most severe, example of a rising tide of anti-immigrant sentiment  fuelled by populist rhetoric and rightwing thuggery.

Coincidentally, just before the attack in Southport, I was speaking to my Spanish niece who was here on a home visit from working in childcare in Ireland. She was telling me how a mood of xenophobia has grown there since the riots in Dublin last summer following the stabbing of a woman and three children by a man. As soon as I heard of the Southport incident I predicted something similar might occur. I wish I had been wrong.

Sadly, any incident involving a foreigner these days seems to provide the pretext for a violent reaction from racist bigots, stirred up by opportunistic rabble-rousers and social media propagandisers. Admittedly the incidents in Dublin and Southport were horrific and deeply distressing, but understandable anger cannot be an excuse for the sort of violent disturbances we saw in their aftermath. 

It was particularly sickening to see residents of Southport, who had surely suffered enough, being subjected to riot and arson in the heart of their community perpetratad by outsiders. What a crass intrusion into their grieving by a braying mob. The (extra)ordinary folk of Southport rallied round and showed that they were united, and defiant, in grief.

There is, though, a grim sense of déja-vu in all this. I vividly remember the riots of 2011, which happened just as I was about to leave London for Paris. As we enjoyed a community party in a local park we could see clouds of snoke rising over Tottenham, not realising the cause until later. I recall how shocked my Parisian friends were that such a thing could happen in England, especially in the run-up to the Olympics. Now we have the Olympics in Paris and again England is in turmoil. 

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) at the time of the riots was one Keir Starmer, who was given free rein by the Tory government of David Cameron to come down hard on those arrested for riot, arson and looting. He now occupies the position of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and will no doubt relish the opportunity to play the hard man once again. 

Posturing is all very well but his cabinet needs to get a grip of the underlying malaise of racism and xenophobia fuelled by a deep sense of disenchantment, alienation and abandonment after fourteen years of Tory austerity. More of the same is hardly likely to work. Arrests and stiff prison sentences without addressing the serious societal implications of poverty and inequality will merely add to resentment and store up further trouble for the future.

I fear we must brace ourselves for worse to come.



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