I think it's definitely become more visible, but I'm less certain it's widespread. I honestly think a tougher line on "look, if you don't think Rishi Sunak is English, then you don't get booked on Question Time" could help reassert.
Replies
I am clearly going to become the Joker on this but within the last six or seven years, a very popular political movement was more or less destroyed because the media and political class decided it was worth their while making a concerted effort.
sep 2, 2025, 9:10 am • 35 3 • view
I think it was good, not bad, that 'the English irony' and the mural were considered non-negotiable, and that the central biggest problem is the right's immune response is not doing the same thing.
sep 2, 2025, 9:26 am • 34 0 • view
To put it pretty bluntly, if all the representative and community newspapers serving British ethnic minorities got together on this issue I don't think it would be the on the BBC news that evening
sep 2, 2025, 9:34 am • 11 1 • view
And they didn't before: huge amount stories in communal papers and statements that went uncovered and weren't picked up. It was only the correct willingness of Labour people to make it a party beef story that got it onto the BBC.
sep 2, 2025, 9:38 am • 13 0 • view
We see this at the other end, too: the BBC have gave more coverage to 'will Diane be the MP?' in July 2024 than 'Robert Jenrick being photographed with a member of Combat 18'.
sep 2, 2025, 9:41 am • 23 0 • view
Yeah, I think there is also the fact that Labour clearly don't regard it as an issue, or at least not enough to make a fuss.
sep 2, 2025, 9:53 am • 10 0 • view
Agree. Think Phil absolutely right here and in the previous post.
sep 2, 2025, 9:54 am • 7 0 • view
I have to say I can only conclude that part of the issue is some people in senior positions in Labour and in the media are themselves quite racist on the issue of refugees
sep 2, 2025, 10:00 am • 6 0 • view
There's a lot of "well nobody wants refugees living near them" going around. Um actually many of us do not mind that at all or indeed choose to engage in community work or socialise with refugees. That view is a racist view, straightforwardly.
sep 2, 2025, 10:01 am • 4 0 • view
So I think yes, norm enforcement mechanisms are important but also some people who are not the most motivated racists, actually still don't want to enforce those norms because they do not agree with them and we have to be comfortable pointing that out
sep 2, 2025, 10:02 am • 0 0 • view
As I occasionally say, we shouldn't see this as a whole new thing but partly as the latest development in post 2001 Islamophobia, which I think explains a lot here. Grooming gangs and cousin marriages both got into the mainstream via Labour MPs who don't care to be reminded of the fact.
sep 2, 2025, 9:59 am • 3 1 • view
Yeah - this is all very obviously Checkov’s gun And the first act was GWOT and supporting Israel If you’re at the point where, for example, you believe in mass death for “dem Islams” as every Israel supporter does, then they’re not really human and they don’t become human if they get a visa
sep 2, 2025, 12:08 pm • 2 0 • view
This is why Trump makes more sense than George W Bush - the latter wanted to inflict mass death in the Middle East but carry on with multiethnic democracy at home - but the logic of mass death precludes the latter. Trump is more consistent - he says “we need to push these terrible people out”. end
sep 2, 2025, 12:10 pm • 2 0 • view
Unfortunately this seems right but I don't understand how we are in a place where "main political party becomes completely radicalised" is not news but "leader of main political party is called out by other leading members of party" is news. Like internal discord is the only story available...?
sep 2, 2025, 10:23 am • 3 0 • view
It's part of the broader problem of treating everything as horse race, unfortunately.
sep 2, 2025, 10:26 am • 3 0 • view
worse though: that could involve some assessment of the horses relative to one another, not just whether the jockey is having a fight with his horse or not
sep 2, 2025, 10:28 am • 0 0 • view
I agree with approximately 97.5% of that, which will do for now. The question is, where's the beef going to come from? In 2017-19 the BBC weren't only listening to Tom Watson & co; they were happy to amplify Tory talking-points about Corbynite thuggery & bigotry.
sep 2, 2025, 9:48 am • 5 0 • view
So yes, a bit of In All My Years As A Conservative outrage from some credible Tory backbencher (get me a David Gauke type) would do the world of good in surfacing the issue, but really, Labour should be all over this stuff. Not joining in and doing 'innocent face' when called on it.
sep 2, 2025, 9:51 am • 14 1 • view
Yeah, agree - I mean in part because a bit more from Labour would prey on some minds in the chamber (it is ultimately a workplace after all).
sep 2, 2025, 9:54 am • 4 0 • view
I do wonder when they will start to act. There were 5 racist attacks in the news this week (2 of them committed by elected members of reform) but the Tory party has no interest in defending its right flank.
sep 2, 2025, 9:45 am • 2 0 • view
Ok but I don’t think those things were actually “non-negotiable” - those were just the hooks that were used. The non-negotiable bits were the wholly legitimate policies. And in any case I don’t recall Corbyn joking about hook noses but the alternatives to him had made some “interesting” jokes
sep 2, 2025, 11:22 am • 1 0 • view
So the logic of declaring Labour illegitimate in 2019 & saying political hygiene depended on electing a corrupt racist populist to No 10 instead was always about racial hierarchy & racism - and so is of a piece with “deport” - not in opposition to it. See Jenrick: anti-Corbyn, pro racism. end
sep 2, 2025, 11:25 am • 1 0 • view
Yes. This. The issue wasn't that the media etc went hard on Corbyn, it was that they haven't done the same on Farage.
sep 2, 2025, 9:55 am • 12 0 • view
Agree with the first half, but the key point was that in 2019 etc the media didn't do the same on Johnson.
sep 2, 2025, 10:15 am • 1 0 • view
I think 2018-19 was completely sui generis; it showed British media caring about racism at a level which has never been seen before or since.
sep 2, 2025, 10:17 am • 3 0 • view
You mean you don’t think the press will subject to Bobby J and Farage to similar levels of scrutiny in 2029 for their views on race? 🧐
sep 2, 2025, 10:19 am • 0 0 • view
At some point we also need to realise *who* is moving the dials on this stuff and *how*. I bang on about it - but the trans stuff wasn't some bottom up movement. It was literally a multi-hundred million dollar investment in research and campaigning by the Christian right in the US.
sep 2, 2025, 10:26 am • 4 0 • view
They've been very open about it. They did research to work out how to turn the tide on LGBT rights and the children/women trans thing stuck. So they rolled out a massive campaign on it and spent a fortune. At some point have to realise GB News is the same - it's a sinkhole for right wing cash.
sep 2, 2025, 10:29 am • 2 0 • view
That same reality is pathetic in the mainstream/centre-left space. And we keep thinking we can tinker at the edges with the BBC. I think we're losing the plot. Let's just get on and fight a bit.
sep 2, 2025, 10:30 am • 2 0 • view
Whereas when the BNP proposed much milder policies in it was correctly attacked. We're strange that we have much, much more diverse people in powerful positions now than we did in 2009, but are much weaker at policing racism.
sep 2, 2025, 10:00 am • 4 0 • view
A NHS worker was attacked in a park, a east Asian womans football team were giving racist abuse, a Sky news reporter was harassed, a MP is calling another MP the n word and reform councilor threatened to murder someone. In the last 7 days! None of this is popular! Talk about it!
sep 2, 2025, 10:03 am • 4 0 • view
Invite the woman who was assaulted to downing street. Send Liz Nandy to the woman's teams next match. Vote to suspend the MP. You are the government! You get to make the issue!
sep 2, 2025, 10:05 am • 2 0 • view
Because this is going to happen. There will be a backlash to more open racism. The job of the government is to make the backlash happen *before* people die.
sep 2, 2025, 10:06 am • 2 0 • view
Or on Starmer, more to the point.
sep 2, 2025, 10:21 am • 0 0 • view
One thing I think we can say is the media has not been kind to the Government
sep 2, 2025, 10:22 am • 0 0 • view
But not on this.
sep 2, 2025, 10:23 am • 0 0 • view
Ah, I've just worked out which mural: not the Jenryk's cruelty one but the other one.
sep 2, 2025, 9:36 am • 1 0 • view
In many ways I thought this was a bad idea and shouldn't have been done, but it definitely happened and worked, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask the BBC, opinion columnists, political parties etc to take things that seriously again.
sep 2, 2025, 9:11 am • 10 1 • view