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.
