From ThinkProgress, Time Magazine, and USA Today, welcome to the post-Brexit Britain:
There has been a significant rise in hate crimes since the U.K. voted to leave the European Union last week, according to local media — which is probably not a surprise given the blatantly xenophobic campaigning of Leave supporters.
The Independent reported Tuesday that there have already been over 100 incidents of racial abuse and hate crimes since the U.K. voted to leave the union last Thursday. A Facebook album called “Worrying Signs” has compiled reports of the incidents throughout the country — from personal threats and attacks to vandalization of cultural centers. Polish and Muslim communities in particular have faced the brunt of many of these attacks, but it’s certainly spread beyond that as well.
(All links are from the original source)
Britain has seen a 57% rise in hate crimes since last week (at least—multiple sources today are now reporting a 400% rise) when a majority of its voting-age citizens, encouraged by cynical politicians spewing anti-immigrant rhetoric, voted to leave the EU. The hate has emerged not only through vandalism at the homes of immigrants and people of color but by personal threats and violence, ranging from verbal assaults to anonymous notes left at schools:
In just one of the hundreds of incidents now being reported, little cards were left at homes and a school in Cambridgeshire, reading “Leave the E.U. No more Polish vermin."
The rise in racist attacks appears to be pegged to the belief that migrants will have to leave the U.K. following the referendum — in which the Leave campaign vowed to “take back control” of immigration.
If that sounds familiar, it should. This is what happens when a so-called “economic populist” movement using race as a scapegoat motivates people to try to change governments. Substitute “Latino or Hispanic,” “African- American” or “Jewish” for “Polish” "Pakistani” or “Romanian" and you will get a good picture of what will happen to this country if a candidate whose entire campaign has relied on stoking racial resentment is allowed to ascend to power. It doesn’t matter what “disclaimers” are put out afterwards. It doesn’t matter what the candidate does or does not say once he’s elected. All that matters is that his followers feel vindicated, with all the reasons for their simmering hatred receiving a tacit seal of approval by the public at large:
On Tuesday, a group of men in Manchester shouted racist slurs at another passenger on the tram and told him to “get deported.” One of the men shouted “Get off the tram right now, bro I will waste you… Don’t chat shit when you’re not even from England!” before throwing a drink on the passenger.
Even as Donald Trump pivots to a phony embrace of trade protectionism in order to woo working-class white American males who’ve been dealt a raw deal in this economy, the high point in his rallies (and we will see many more of them over the summer) continues to be a feverish chant by his supporters to “Build That Wall.” His rallies prominently feature people who claim to have been victimized by undocumented immigrants. He supports banning Muslims from even entering our country. Anti-Black and Anti-Semitic skinheads have flocked to him. There is no doubt in his followers’ minds who the enemy really is, and it has nothing to do with tariffs, trade or China.
In Britain the “Leave” movement is finding out that all of the soaring rhetoric they heard about the benefits they would enjoy for leaving the European Union has proved to be nothing more than the hollow bleatings of cynical pols more interested in their own temporary elevation to star status than actually solving any of that nation’s economic troubles:
The spike in crimes is no surprise given that Leave supporters often made their case through xenophobic and racist language, rather than serious conversations about the economy or the refugee crisis facing Europe, two issues of concern to many U.K. citizens and residents. As the U.K. economy continues to suffer from the vote to leave the union, and Leave supporters walk back many of their promises about how leaving the E.U. would good for the British economy, it’s clear that sadly, the xenophobic rhetoric is all that has remained.
In the U.S.A. we have an equally unserious candidate unwilling to engage on critical issues facing the American public in anything but bombastic, inflammatory rhetoric better suited to the lowest echelons of AM talk radio. Rather than commit himself to any intelligent course of action this candidate prefers to communicate to his adoring crowds by selling them on xenophobic, racially-charged fantasies, promising them a different country if they will only vote him into power.
But those fantasies don’t magically disappear when the candidate is elected. They become the ugly stuff of what we’re witnessing now in Britain.