Regarding Recent Events In Southampton

Mark Hayes ✍ I am going to keep this short because I am far too depressed about it to do otherwise.

Meet the Southampton "patriots" - Another Angry Voice

The recent tragic death of Henry Nowak at the hands of a knife-wielding maniac, and the inept response of the local police, has created serious inter-racial tension in my city. This is new territory for us. Southampton is a merchant port and racial conflict has been (and is) exceedingly rare. Oswald Mosley’s Fascists got run out of town in the 1930s, the city took in Basque refugees during the Spanish Civil War and I can remember Southampton dockers refusing to handle cargo from Apartheid South Africa. Racism never really gained any traction here (it has a far more natural home in the Royal Navy port up the road).

Recent events have therefore been shocking. Unfortunately, genuine grief and consternation about the dreadful murder of a young man have been exploited (against the explicit wishes of the family) by national far-right figures like Nigel Farage. It was a perfect opportunity for cynical, racist politicians to exploit a tragedy, and their efforts attracted the usual assortment of knuckle-dragging neanderthals (see above). In effect certain politicians gave this social dross a free pass to express their venomous rage at “immigrants”. However, there are a number of interrelated aspects to this event which require some attention.

The first point is straightforward. The perpetrator, Vickrum Digwa, was not an “immigrant” because he was born in Britain and he was punished with a life sentence (minimum 21 years). He deserved it, and more. However, there are many people killed in hideous circumstances every day at the hands of “white” people, but they do not usually precipitate performative posturing in public by the criminal underclass. Those identified above are nothing more than sadistic bullies, jumping on a bandwagon in the hope of inflicting pain on people who cannot fight back. Clearly, these people are part of the despicable detritus who blight working class communities across the country. I hope they rot in jail with Digwa. Good riddance. That part is relatively uncomplicated.

However, there is something far more dangerous at work here because many ordinary people actually sympathise with these cretins. In essence this is because the issue of immigration has become so irredeemably toxic. Reason and clarity have diminished in the context of a moral panic manufactured and manipulated by the far right, aided and abetted by a complicit media. Obviously, the leaders of far-right organisations, like Rupert Lowe (a racist reptile who once owned Southampton FC) are culpable. Calling people “third world savages” and threatening to open “detention camps” is the kind of rhetoric we have not heard since the days of old-style Nazis like John Tyndall and Nick Griffin. The ghosts of the NF and the BNP have returned to haunt us – fascism is now mainstream and racism is respectable.

Diminutive dimwit “Tommy Robinson” is worthy of a mention here too. It cannot be denied that this Zionist grifter has a considerable following. Of course, “Tommy” is (literally) a fraud, and so spectacularly stupid he would struggle to find his own arse with both hands, but it matters not. He touches a very raw nerve, and is now in contact with the Musk family. Once the world’s only trillionaire starts funding the likes of Yaxley-Lennon we should take notice. All “Robinson” needs to do is wave a Union Jack and disparage Muslims in vitriolic tones and the usual drunken cohorts can be relied upon to clap like seals and launch plastic bins at the police. He really has become the pied-piper of the English lumpenproletariat. However, it is unlikely to stop there. The fact is that chancers like “Robinson”, Lowe and Farage are simply exploiting a favourable political environment, but they did not create it. Yes, they are dangerous people, and they fully deserve our opprobrium, but what else would you expect from them?

The reality is that the horrendous troglodytes of the British far-right are not the cause of this particular political conundrum, they are a secondary consequence but its primary beneficiaries. One of the deeper sources of the current crisis actually lies in the fact that the British “left” has completely abandoned the working class. The current Labour government has no intention of dealing with the vast inequalities which now characterise British society. It is capitalism which creates the poverty and division upon which racists and fascists feast. Yet Starmer clings resolutely to his neo-liberal economic orthodoxies. Ordinary people continue to be cast adrift in a storm of free-market chaos, while Starmer’s government focuses on eliminating jury trials and arresting pensioners who protest against genocide. Far from pursuing any kind of egalitarian agenda, the authoritarians in the Labour party are preparing the way for the fascists. This is not an exaggeration. At one time Britain had a strong trade union movement which provided a genuine sense of collective identity for working class people, and a Labour Party that offered an alternative perspective on political possibilities. That seems like a very long time ago. The working class in Britain has never been so atomised and alienated, and they can now be easily radicalised by the far-right on social media.

The fact that this is actually happening at an alarming rate reflects the absolute failure of the “left”. In recent years the “left” has transformed itself from an (albeit imperfect) mechanism aiming to mobilise and manifest working class agency, into a lobby group for a variety of disparate “causes”. It has moved from the council estates and factories to the leafy suburbs and University vestibules. Obsessed by the narcissism of post-modern identity politics, the “left” has not only ditched the meta-narrative of class conflict, it has relinquished any kind of competent plan for practical, progressive social transformation. Of course I am over-simplifying to emphasise a point, but the reality is that this new “left” has been infected with a fatal dose of liberal individualism. It has no effective ideological compass and it is heading for political oblivion.

One of the most egregious consequences of this process has been the complete inability of this new “left” to have an honest conversation about immigration and its consequences. And the far right has filled this void. The fact is that many of the deepest concerns that ordinary people have about immigration are rooted in resource-scarcity rather than racism. People are understandably anxious about the implications for their own future welfare. The “left” does not seem to have a serious impulse to discuss this let alone a plan to resolve it. Rather than recognising these concerns, allaying fears and mobilising against racism within the relevant local communities, the field has been left open to the fake radicals of the far-right. Apparently access to toilets and the debate over whether a woman can have a penis are pressing problems that require urgent attention. There has been a systematic perversion of priorities here. It would be funny if it wasn’t so fucking tragic.

I would also like to add a note, if I may, about recent events in Belfast. Loyalists have always constituted a nasty parochial version of fascism. They are racist by definition, and their recent paroxysm of rage, which was orchestrated by thugs, produced scenes reminiscent of Bombay Street. This has surprised absolutely no-one who possesses a Republican cast of mind. Loyalists be loyalist. Let’s face it, anyone actively supporting the genocidal fanatics in Israel must be pretty comfortable with the idea of slaughtering innocent people. In fact, many of them openly celebrate Zionist barbarism. This fact does precipitate a couple of pertinent observations. The idea that armed Republican resistance was not necessary to confront their nasty sectarian state is completely exposed as utterly absurd (it always was). Given the opportunity, those ignorant gobshites burning houses last week would undoubtedly do far worse to their Catholic neighbours (and of course those of similar ilk have done so in the past). Those Republicans who resisted such evil are owed a debt of gratitude which should never be forgotten. Moreover, that kind of resolve will undoubtedly be required in the future struggle against “Irish fascism”. That phrase should really be an oxymoron, and anyone on the far-right using Republican iconography to promote their poisonous political ideology should have manners put on them. No exceptions! It is always worth remembering that fascism doesn’t start with the camps – that’s where it ends. Fight them now, before it’s too late. No pasaran!

⏭ Mark Hayes has published widely on a variety of subjects. He is a republican and a Marxist, unapologetic on both counts.