I was on holiday when news of the riots across England appeared on the front pages of newspapers displayed at French newsagents.
Obviously I was as alarmed as anybody else that the country was, in the words of Elon Musk – a man set on proving the line between genius and madness is very thin indeed – about to descend into large scale riots, if not his civil war.
Happily it failed to do so. It was heartening to see from afar the normal people of this country taking to the streets to oppose the extremists, and those whose political beliefs seemed to stretch no further than looting Greggs while abusing Muslims and coppers.
It was particularly heartening to see a video of drinkers in Accrington, where I used to work for the “Accrington Observer”, coming out of pubs to hug Muslim demonstrators out protecting their mosques. During my time in Accrington, I reported on the mosque (or at least one of them) and they were always very nice people, with plenty of sweet and sickly cakes for a hungry young reporter.
It was disheartening to see that the trouble was based on lies, both around the Southport incident and more generally.
If only they’d read “Chronicle” factchecks they’d have known that there is no evidence that grooming gangs are mainly Asian, a fact flagged up in a report from the Home Office itself, foreword by Priti Patel, whom one senses wrote it through gritted teeth. As noted in a factcheck last week, paedophiles are thought to be between 1-5% of the male population, irrespective of ethnic group; the only accurate predictor of offending seems to be that offenders are male.
Aside from the fact that the anti-fascist marches prevented more riots, they also gave the lie to the claim from politicians in the last government that their immigration rhetoric was in some way the “wish of the people”.
While people want asylum seekers to stop making risky crossings in cheap boats, being hostile to foreigners is probably not the will of the people at all, as most people are not extreme or racist, and just want to get on with their neighbours.
I remember interviewing a man who worked in a factory, telling me that a Sikh started work at the bench next to him. They didn’t speak for a while, not because the man was racist but because he didn’t know what to say. Eventually they struck up a conversation and my man realised the Sikh, was, in his words, “just like me”.
None of this is to say that limitless numbers of migrants should be welcomed with open arms. We need some form of control, but the issue has been hijacked by extremists to the point where it is very difficult to talk about anything. Anyone who favours migration is mocked as wanting them all in, while people who favour restrictions are branded as racist. It does no-one any good to label people either way.
Part of the problem is that the poor sods coming over the channel in little boats from Decathlon are seen as the whole problem – witness Nigel Farage repeatedly filming them – when in fact they are a tiny percentage of migrants coming to this country. (I saw Mr Farage whining that “questions have to be asked” after Southport, despite the fact he is now an MP and has the power to ask any person he wants, from chief constables to House of Commons library staff).
The palaver caused by any issue around migration also prevents sensible discussion about the fact that we need young, working age migrants coming to this country, not only to fill positions in organisations such as the NHS but to pay our pensions.
It is a common belief that you “pay into your pension”, whereas in fact your payments go to today’s pensioners and your pensions will be paid by working people in years to come. No working age people, no pension. With an aging population, we need some younger people of working age.
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After coming back from France, I went to the (excellent) Bestival music festival, on the Shropshire Staffordshire border.
Admittedly, people who camp for three nights, don’t shower and spend four days praying for it not to rain are possibly not a typical cross-section of the population but Bestival is not too bad – more representative than Just So, held at Rode Hall the same weekend. If you dropped a bomb on Just So, the “Guardian” readership would plummet but at Bestival, looking at the cars and vans in the car park, a wider range of people attended, from tradespeople to professionals.
One of the best things about it was that everybody was nice – nice to children, nice to each other and nice to people of any gender or ethnic background. Going back to hounding migrants being “the will of the people,” this was further evidence that it was not.
Mind you, racists would probably just turn round before they went into Bestival. The security guards were mostly from the Indian subcontinent. I can’t imagine a racist being happy about having his bag searched by a Muslim with a big beard …
***
Some of the conversations I overheard while walking around the festival ground were entertaining.
The most memorable was at a vinyl record stall, where a teenage girl approached, picked up a single (The Who) and asked the Bristolian behind the counter whether “there was only one song on this”.
The stall owner explained about A and B sides (and got over the confusion of the girl asking who The Who were) and there generally only being one song per side on a 45.
Full marks to the teenager, though; she was buying it for her boyfriend who collects vinyl and said it was the most nerve-racking thing she had done.
The stallholder agreed it did make us both feel very old.
