A Very Different Feeling

I’ve had time to sit back and really take in the events that happened on Sunday the 4th of August, but that hasn’t really made me feel any more positive about them. When I was asked to go down and show solidarity with the counter protest group that day, I never expected to feel so vulnerable. I had seen the disgraceful video of our MP Sarah Edwards in parliament stating that Tamworth residents ‘wanted their hotel back’, even senselessly naming the building, but I didn’t really expect the people opposing our group to be so viscerally angry. I suppose in hindsight that was a bit naive considering the events that had already taken place across the country on the same weekend but, Tamworth though, really?

When I arrived at the Snow Dome car park there were only about 50 – 100 people standing erratically by the lake opposite the Holiday Inn. I couldn’t see the counter protest so I decided to hang back and see what was actually happening. I frantically messaged people to see where they were whilst checking peripherally to see if anybody was approaching me. A dog jumped up against my car, and its 3 handlers casually sauntered passed, smiling at me whilst weighing me up to see if I approved of their stance or not. I smiled back, hopefully, revealing nothing.

When I finally got word that the counter protest was now in place outside the hotel I decided to head towards it via a more clandestine route that wouldn’t aggravate anybody, and when I strolled towards the group you could see that they were visibly nervous about the situation. I understood how they felt. Good spirits were promoted though and a jovial cheer of ‘migrants welcome here’ ensued. The semi-aggressive nature of the main ‘protest’ was unnerving but reasonable, highlighted only by casual abuse being thrown towards us advising us that we weren’t ‘patriots’ or that we supported rapists and paedophiles. Abuse you expect at a demonstration from people who don’t agree with you and are angry.

The police maintained a dividing line and did well with their numbers to keep things civil, supervising opposition speakers superfluously trying to convince the other side that what they believed was actually the truth. The opposition crowd had increased by this point though. There could have easily been 200 to 300 people there and a man had arrived with a microphone and speaker, insidiously riling the crowd up with angry football chants which consisted mainly of the word ‘England’. As the tension grew you could hear certain ring leaders within the far-right camp shout something, which was along the lines of ‘move forward’. And like a snap of the fingers a large chunk of the group broke off to push forward against the police barricade. The police bravely held back the charge but by this point the mood on our side had changed significantly. We essentially started to panic.

As the tension grew we tried to chant in solidarity with the vulnerable people inside the hotel, but this only seemed to anger the opposing side pushing forward against the police line. Rocks started to be thrown, then fireworks were launched, flares and smoke grenades. A woman in our small group of 15-20 people got hit with something in the chest and although luckily was physically able to continue, mentally you could see she was experiencing trauma. A police dog was injured as well as a police officer and there were rumblings from the other officers that a group had come around the back of the hotel as well as from towards the Snow Dome itself, isolating us from escape. Panic had now dissipated and fear had comfortably gushed in.

One last attempt was made by the group to push a more positive message. A couple of people went to get some placards in the hope that chanting and refusing to move would mitigate the anger and violence. Unfortunately this proved to be baseless. A group of us decided that it may be best to leave, especially since the police, who not only had to hold the rioters back, but also had to try and protect us at the same time, were struggling to keep the violence from spilling over onto our side. We believed that our message was now having an injurious effect on the people inside the hotel. Half the group split off to try and leave via a back route towards the Snow Dome, pleading with the rest to follow us before the mob got through the line and did some serious harm. Wide eyed and adrenaline rich we luckily managed to find a route out that wasn’t occupied and escaped without notice, heading unwaveringly towards the town centre. We checked on the group chat to make sure everybody had got out safely and then, embracing the safety of our homes, sat and watched the horrific events that unfolded afterwards with feelings of fear and despair.

The far-right rioters were not there for a peaceful protest like their clumsily put together Facebook call advertised, they were there to get into that hotel. Like any egregious leader of a corrupt business, they stated their intentions were entirely honest. But once you have been duped into buying the product the reality hits home. When there were finally enough people to intimidate the police, they attacked. This seemed planned and coordinated, even if the way in which it was carried out was fumbled and careless. They had no interest in dialogue and had no fear of repercussions from the police or the other people in their community. They were also committed to this cause, which suggests that the widely pushed ‘clamp-down’ strategy of the Labour government now supposedly being used to ‘punish’ the rioters won’t change their beliefs. They seem to be in it for the long haul.

So where did this all come from? Tamworth doesn’t have a massively far-right presence does it?

A Surreptitious Ideology

You would be hard pressed to find a public space in Tamworth which doesn’t have room for voices that are entirely comfortable with using terminology that can be quite obviously classed as racism. Many of the public houses contain regular patrons that are more than happy to use the ‘P’ word when describing a local shop they may frequent. I have myself witnessed the workers in local Indian restaurants or late night takeaways get verbal abuse from drunken customers, seemingly still happy to be there even though they know the food has been prepared by the people being subjected to their aggression. The most absurd case I witnessed was in the garden of a local pub where a woman, roughly 50 years of age with a scratchy smokers growl, was openly condemning any form of immigration as bad for the country as the people themselves were untrustworthy. Despite the tone being extremely nefarious, the most horrifying part was the fact that 2 men, speaking in broken English and having a different skin colour to the woman in question, were nervously agreeing with her. Maybe out of desperation for their own safety within the wider group that seemed to present itself in the form of a ‘work’s do’ or maybe because they actually agreed with her. Being part of a group with numbers has its benefits when you are marginalised in society.

All these examples, of which I have witnessed many, show the ease at which racism flows through the town. I grew up surrounded by people who acted as if these things were normal, myself included. Something you don’t realise is absurd until you move away from the town to somewhere more diverse. This doesn’t, however, explain the reason for far-right rioting at the Holiday Inn in its entirety though. There seems to me to be a missing link in between the two sets of incidents which bring the whole narrative together. Certain Tamworth residents themselves may be comfortable with casual forms of racism, but looking at the response to the acts of violence, they generally don’t seem to be accepting rioting as a solution. Despite the fact that a recent YouGov poll shows that 58% of Britons have sympathy with people peacefully demonstrating about immigration, the general consensus is that rioting is bad and negatively impacts communities. Looking at where the riots have largely been taking place though provides some interesting data that can help explain why places like Tamworth have become breeding grounds for far-right ideologies.

A significant number of towns and cities targeted by far-right groups during the riots are classed as some of the most deprived areas in the country. Tamworth itself has neighbourhoods which are in the top 20% most income deprived in England.  Combined with austerity that has integrated itself into most communities across the UK over the last 14 years, and more detrimentally so in areas with high rates of deprivation, there are sure to be many people who are angry at the unfair treatment they’ve received and are looking for reasons as to why they have been left behind.

Many people experiencing money worries will also have an ‘overwhelming belief that no one really cares to help’ according to research by the mental health charity Mind. When this is coupled with a myriad of voices demonising anybody who claims welfare support, or who happens to be unemployed, it’s no surprise that a significant amount of people experience shame about being in financial hardship. People who feel rejected by mainstream institutions supposedly there to ensure wellbeing, will look for alternative voices who may not offer ‘traditional’ types of support, especially when they offer a vent for feelings of utter despair in the form of ultra violence against members of an unfamiliar community.

Of course not everybody willing to throw rocks at police and counter demonstrators or set fire to buildings will necessarily have mental health problems. Or be in financial hardship for that matter. Trying to justify violent actions by simply assigning economic and health factors is limited in its capacity, but it can help explain why certain people can be more susceptible to radicalisation by destructive ideologies. If your life is going well and you benefit from the way things are, you probably aren’t interested in changing them (I didn’t notice many bankers being arrested for participating in the disorder). If you feel like all is lost and there is a group that is offering you support and a reason for your situation, many people just might be browbeaten enough to follow it.

Which leads on to another interesting point, that is probably the most significant factor in the recent riots. The radicalisation of a particular group of people which has been years in the making. Racism, of course, isn’t a new topic recently discovered, but with civil rights movements during the second half of the twentieth century beginning to bear fruit, a slightly more tolerant society emerged from the rubble. This resulted in young people growing up alongside members of their community that didn’t necessarily look like them. But when Tony Blair’s New Labour decided to go on the offensive against the migrant community after they came to power, this hard work slowly started to come un done. Engineering such policies as the expansion of detention centres (essentially prisons for people claiming asylum which included the now infamous Yarl’s wood) Labour believed they could push back against the anti-migrant rhetoric seeping into public opinion via the mainstream media. Fast forward 20 years and we can see how that attitude has paid off. From David Cameron’s ‘net migration’ pledge, to Teresa May’s ‘hostile environment’. From Ed Milliband’s control on immigration mug’s to Suella Braverman’s full bodied embrace of the highly controversial, and now scrapped, Rwanda deportation scheme, the message from the far-right pushing for these policies has always been clear. You can’t ‘appease’ racism. Unless a firm stance is taken in opposition to the degradation of certain people’s human rights, ideas always follow a specific path. The one that leads further to the right. With a media class perfectly happy to go along for the ride, it’s not really that surprising that certain people in the UK have developed racist tendencies. When you have been told throughout your life that certain language is acceptable, why wouldn’t you believe that to be the case?

 When you combine this information with the fact that Tamworth’s white population stands at 95.7%, a very clear picture starts to emerge. Being force fed racist language from increasingly under regulated internet based ‘news’ outlets whilst never having met anybody that isn’t white unless you happen to like eating in an Indian restaurant, a fear of the ‘other’ can become very real. A generation of human rights movements designed to protect particular groups of people have paradoxically given rise to hate filled ideologies designed to make mainly young white men feel like they no longer have a decent position in society. With all the hardship the working class in society endure, for a long time they have felt it acceptable to do so as long as they benefit from it. Eroding public services and stagnating wages whilst the cost of living skyrockets has shone a light on groups who, collectively, have created a voice for themselves. Instead of working together against the people imposing these circumstances on to all of us, some people have decided to fight against people in the very same position. It’s not hard to understand why, though.

Is There A Way Forward From Here?

I recently attended a local Labour group meeting in which our MP Sarah Edwards was present. I asked her how she felt about her comments that she made in parliament now that the rioting had broken out and caused so much devastation in the community that she represents. She responded to me by saying that her words had no bearing on the outcome of August the 4th. Everybody knew where the hotel was and she was just voicing the opinion of the majority of her constituents. She also tacitly suggested that attending the protest and being attacked was my own fault. I was putting myself in danger because everybody knew that there would be violence. Everybody, apparently, but myself and the several other people standing in solidarity next to me. When another member of the group asked her why she hadn’t mentioned race once during her retort, she seemed hostile and dismissive, apparently not prepared to have to discuss why race would be an issue in a scenario where angry white men are setting fire to a building housing black and brown men. Not a response that seems intent on bringing about a more peaceful community I don’t think. Especially when you believe that your words carry no weight whilst at the same time parroting far-right talking points in parliament. If they have no significance then why say anything? Why even turn up?

Despite the removal of the main instigators of these riots being welcome in the short term, long term the ideas of many people haven’t shifted. Reading through comments on specific Tamworth Facebook pages anybody can see that, if anything, the ideology has strengthened. Increased law and order that tries to force people into a corrected behaviour has rarely proven to be successful. With Labour tenuously holding a majority in Tamworth, I doubt whether this response will be enough to maintain that in the future.

As a result myself and a few others have decided to write to our MP and request a meeting with her to discuss moving forward in the town. I imagine many people out there are worried about the future and whether we will see any more incidents like this, so we feel it’s necessary to tackle this issue sooner rather than later. As of yet she hasn’t responded to us. Her attitude towards the incident in general doesn’t provide us with much hope that she will either. The burden, it would appear, is now on all of our shoulders.

Do we all want to live in a community that tolerates hatred towards people that have a different colour skin or do we want unity across the working class? Should we accept an ideology that promotes violence against other human beings or do we all want a feeling of safety when walking our streets? Do we want economic solutions to be provided for the desperate situations that a lot of people in our community are currently experiencing or do we want to pretend that anger against people in the same situation we are in will resolve everything? I know what my answers to those questions are, and I think a lot of people in Tamworth will feel the same. If we want the real problems underpinning our town to truly be eradicated, we all need to work together as a community to ensure that people’s lives and futures are protected. If our MP can’t guarantee that for us, maybe we should all join together and shout a bit louder.

Source >> Tamworth Solidarity