The “demonising” of asylum seekers, immigrants and the legal profession by Conservative ministers helped prepare the ground for the far-right riots gripping the UK, critics including senior politicians have warned.
They say that years of scapegoating by senior Tory figures helped stoke and normalise anti-immigrant feeling that in part fuelled the violence that has spread across England in the last week.
Former prime minister Rishi Sunak’s pledge to “Stop the Boats” was chanted by rioters last week, while former home secretary Suella Braverman previously described the flow of asylum seekers to England’s coast as an “invasion”.
Hotels used to house asylum seekers were attacked over the weekend by far-right gangs, while several mosques have been threatened.
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In the wake of the violence, former Conservative party chair Baroness Sayeeda Warsi said for years she had been warning about “anti-Muslim racism and Islamophobia in the party”.
“Is the Labour government dealing with this unrest well? It might not be perfect, but at least we have the sane squad in charge,” Warsi said. “Had my [Conservative] colleagues been in charge, they’d be ratcheting up the hate rather than dealing with the violence.”
Some of the most hardline rhetoric from the Tories has come from Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister who is now jostling to become the next Conservative party leader.
In a speech to the Policy Exchange think-tank last year, Jenrick said “excessive, uncontrolled migration threatens to cannibalise the compassion of the British public”.
Illegal migrants had “completely different lifestyles and values to those in the UK,” he went on, adding that “a shared national identity bound by shared memories, traditions and values is a prerequisite to generosity in society”.
Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council charity, said that this kind of rhetoric – and “angry talk of invasion” – had contributed to the “hatred and vilification of refugees” manifesting on the streets.
[ UK police braced for further unrestOpens in new window ]
He added that the previous Tory government had presided over “a meltdown of the asylum system and public confidence [in it]”.
Veteran Labour MP, Diane Abbott, who in 1987 was the first black woman to be elected to parliament, said politicians had been “demonising asylum seekers” year in year out.
“That is why people can try to burn down the hotels where asylum seekers are living,” she said on the BBC’s Today programme on Tuesday, in views shared by many across the party.
She added: “If you demonise people, if you talk about issues as if you are not talking about human beings, this is where it all links.”
Abbott has called on the Labour prime minister Keir Starmer to recall parliament to address the crisis.
She said people in her Hackney constituency in east London wanted to hear their MPs calling out the violence for what it is, “racist and Islamophobic”, and recognise the fear it is causing.
“If people are worried about the health service, their housing, employment they shouldn’t be encouraged to see asylum seekers and migrants as scapegoats,” she said.
An ally of Jenrick, who noted he has publicly called for an end to the violence, said: “Attempting to hide the truth from the public inflames tensions, it doesn’t lower them ... Rob repeatedly warned that mainstream parties’ collective failure to deliver on the legitimate concerns of the public risked precisely this form of unrest.”
Meanwhile, representatives of the legal profession, frequently blamed by the former government for blocking plans to deport irregular migrants to Rwanda, have also alleged the party played a role in fomenting tensions.
Zoe Bantleman, legal director of the Immigration Law Practitioners Association, said the planned targeting of immigration lawyers, and the people they represent, was “the natural inheritance of a climate of hostility fuelled by divisive, anti-migrant, and populist rhetoric from senior politicians ... upon which the far-right have latched”.
Law Society of England and Wales president Nick Emmerson said attacks by Conservatives on the legal profession had created a “space where such language is still seen as acceptable”.
“The recent threats facing our members show this rhetoric has dangerous consequences,” he said.
The Liberal Democrats said the party has long “warned that everyone with a public platform has a duty to avoid dehumanising language and confront the inflammatory rhetoric that fuels hatred”.
A Conservative party spokesperson said: “There is no place for extremism and criminality in our country. It is a central pillar of our society that change can only come through peaceful, democratic process ... That is why Rishi Sunak as prime minister made it clear that we must stand up to extremism in all its forms.”
They added the last Tory government set out reforms to dealing with extremists, redoubled support for the Prevent programme to combat radicalism and demanded that universities stopped extremist activity on campus.
Suella Braverman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
– Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2024
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