UK government criticized for fueling anti-foreigner fervor following race riots

The UK’s new Labour government is being accused of feeding into the dehumanization of immigrants and asylum seekers by advocates for migration reform, as a new poll shows immigration is the top issue in the country.

Caitlin Boswell, policy and advocacy manager for the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, an NGO that works with asylum seekers, said that the new government has been competing with the far right and other parties on negative messaging on migration.

“I think what we've seen is kind of a competition between established political parties and who can perform the kind of cruelest migration policies,” she said.

Before winning a landslide victory last month, the Labour Party said the country does need to offer asylum to those fleeing war or persecution. 

However, both the Labour Party and the then-governing Conservative Party campaigned on bringing down immigration and stopping boats of migrants and asylum seekers crossing into the UK.

The Labour Party’s website states it would “stop the boats,” a phrase often used by the Conservatives and which was chanted by rioters.

“Every time the [Conservatives] have faced a choice between raising skills and working conditions here in the UK or issuing more visas, they choose the higher migration option,” the Labour Party website states. 

A poll by Ipsos released on Friday found that immigration was the top issue facing the UK for respondents who were questioned between August 7 and 13 after the riots. 

The Ipsos polling company said it was the first time immigration had been placed first in almost eight years, at the time of the Brexit referendum. 

Concerns over crime and race relations also increased. 

The UK saw anti-immigration protests turn violent as rioters targeted hotels housing asylum seekers and mosques. 

In early August, rioters lit bins on fire and pushed them toward the Rotherham Holiday Inn Express, where asylum seekers were staying.

A Thursday video of the hotel showed police tape in front of the entrance and some of the windows boarded up. 

Boswell said the event showed how asylum seekers can be targeted and not protected in such hotels. 

"People are absolutely terrified. People are really, really scared to kind of go about their daily lives, to go to the shop, to take their children to school, and beyond just people living in hotels, I'm talking about kind of any migrant communities or people of color right now,” she said.

Nels Abbey, author of Think Like a White Man and a London-based columnist focused on social issues, told The Media Line that the government should have more strongly condemned the racism behind the violence and that immigrants, especially those seeking asylum, have been demonized, including by the Labour party. 

“It was almost like extracting teeth to demand the Labour Party condemn the racism that was clearly at the roots of this,” Abbey said. 

People accused of taking part in the protests have been charged and jailed with violent disorder, and one adult has been charged with riot, which comes with a maximum penalty of up to ten years in prison.

Abbey said that prison would not help address the underlying conditions that caused the riots, arguing that racism, inequality, and poverty had to be addressed as the root causes that led to the violence.

“The dehumanization of migrants in Europe is completely out of control. It is disgusting. It's completely disgusting to a point right now where normal, everyday people saw nothing wrong with trying to actually set a building with human beings inside it alight because they view those human beings as other or as lesser because they're migrants,” he said. 

The riots happened after three children were stabbed to death on July 29, and false rumors spread online that the attacker was a Muslim asylum seeker.

Migration and refugees have been a contentious topic for years in the UK and have dominated political discourse.

The previous Conservative government planned on sending asylum seekers it deemed to have entered the UK illegally to Rwanda to await a decision on their applications to stay in the UK.

A report by Amnesty International and Runnymede Trust stated that the root cause of the violence was the failure to combat institutional racism and that government legislation was in breach of the UN treaty, the International Convention for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. 

Hate crimes increase dramatically

The report cited figures stating that there was a ten-year increase in faith-based hate crimes. 

Hate crimes against Muslims or people perceived as Muslim make up 44 percent of all hate crimes, the largest portion, followed by crimes against people who are Jewish or perceived to be Jewish at 19 percent.

Amnesty International called on the government to “reset the national debate” and not vilify marginalized groups.