Britain is sliding backwards into open racism, fuelled by political silence, immigration narratives & the media. Can we reverse this fall?
Shame has evaporated. With skin colour as their yardstick, the UK’s self-appointed ‘defence warriors’ are having a field day shouting at anyone brown-skinned, from ordinary folk to celebrities and political figures, to ‘go home’.
How did this happen? Racism is the hate-driven verbal and physical abuse of people of colour, typically Asian and Black African communities; it is distinct from, but can be augmented by, for example, Islamophobic, anti-trans and misogynistic abuse. Hence, black Muslims, women and LGBT community members are complex targets: they receive double doses. The focus of this piece is racism in particular.
Hate unleashed
Racism is now unashamedly overt in the US and UK. Trump’s Acting General Counsel, Paul Ingrassia doesn’t hold back in describing black people as behaving like “Victims … because that’s their natural state”, adding that “We need competent white men in positions of leadership”. Similarly, the far-right US political blogger, Curtis Yarvin is recognised as an extremist, who defends slavery and argues for genetic racial IQ differences.
This undisguised racism is also trending in the UK. Migrant hotel rage and recent, jaw-droppingly brazen complaints about the preponderance of black faces on television (Reform MP Sarah Pochin) and in Birmingham (Tory MP Robert Jenrick) have fuelled overt racism.
Nor is this influence confined to the right-wing. Keir Starmer’s Powellesque reference to the UK as an “island of strangers” and Shabana Mahmood’s plan to massively increase migrant deportations and citizenship qualifying periods have helped whet racist appetites.
These narratives have reverberated across a disgruntled nation and, overnight, Operation ‘Raise the Colours’ doused it in flags. Masquerading as national pride, these flapping symbols continue to menace non-white groups, migrant and otherwise, with the message ‘you don’t belong here’.
The powerhouse feeding these narratives is the social media platform, X. In this twilight hellscape, racial abuse is relentlessly indulged, then exponentially amplified at warp speed.
So, we find ourselves plunged back into racism reminiscent of 1960-70’s. In 2025, race hate crimes rose in schools, public transport, hospitals and elsewhere, increasing overall by 6%. For whites, it’s a troubling regression; for non-whites, it’s an excruciating daily existential fear for themselves and their families, whenever they step beyond their front doors to run the new gauntlet.
Racism and immigration
The normalisation of overt racism has been vastly accelerated by its attachment to the ‘great immigration debate’. This concern, prioritised by Donald Trump, Nigel Farage and others, acts as the cover story for darker concerns.
There are valid questions about the costs of processing migrants; and worries about pressures being placed on vital resources (GP appointments, housing, etc) doesn’t make one racist.
However, racism is embedded in the UK’s 2-tier immigration system: Ukrainians are welcomed via official routes whilst most non-white migrants must take their chances in dinghies, then join the processing queue.
Also, the actors who forced ‘immigration’ centre stage as a voter priority, and who turned the conversation into a toxic culture war, have a different agenda. This agenda links immigration directly with racism via the ethno-nationalist idea that national identity should be defined narrowly in terms of ethnicity; hence the influx of non-white races threatens the identity of essentially white nations.
Nigel Farage’s ‘breaking point’ poster captures this view, and it has echoes in Tory MP Katie Lam’s call for “cultural coherence” by deporting even settled families: Englishness should be tied to Anglo-Saxon racial lineage and protected using deportation and strict entry requirements.
Trump, noisy orator of ‘the quiet bits’, recently professed not to be against immigration providing it’s only from countries like Norway. His ICE programme is essentially ethnic cleansing: a vengeful purge of non-whites to flush out ‘the enemy within’, with particular blocks on “garbage” from areas such as Myanmar, Chad, Somalia and Afghanistan.
Europe also has ethno-nationalist concerns. The leader of France’s anti-immigration Rassemblement National, isn’t alone in endorsing the US warnings on immigration-led “civilisational erasure”.
Getting the genie back in its bottle
Can we de-normalise overt racism? Some argue that we should stop fetishizing scapegoats (black communities, including migrants) and focus instead on the greedy oligarchs who reduce peoples’ standards of living and widen inequality.
The wealth networks that exploit the 99% should be exposed. But racist attitudes are not explicable purely as reactions to scarcity or inequality. They also have complex psycho-social backgrounds. The authoritarian seam running though populations means racism won’t simply wither in response to improved economic conditions. Supposed correlations between increased equality and reduced racism are not borne out.
Furthermore, the oligarchs exploiting the 99% are driven by motives that go beyond wealth accumulation. Peter Thiel dabbles in race science and organises secret meetings with US nationalist leaders whilst Musk insists that racism against whites is real. These interests aren’t passing asides but key parts of these men’s psyches that are independent of their quest for wealth and will find ways to function even in more equal societies. We have to grasp the “visceral power of racial hatred” as a force strong enough to “make people who can’t feed their kids vote for a man who goes fox hunting and wears pink corduroy trousers” (Paul Mason & Alastair Campbell).
“Democracy is a system of defences that keep a lid on violence” (Zoe Grunewald). Effective democracy is a stabilizing force, able to contain endemic extremist, including racist, impulses. In 2024/5 our guardrails slipped badly.
Then and now
Structural inequalities and closet racism are ongoing problems and there’s a contrast between, for example, white UK citizens’ breezy perceptions of the 90’s as ‘colour blind’ and the lived experience of ethnic minorities. But, arguably, over the last three decades we developed at least a working ethos of multiculturalism. Psychological measures show a decline in hostility towards non-white communities from the 90’s onwards. Embracing ethnic diversity drove a positive ‘zeitgeist’ expressed in our social discourse.
The psychologist, Lawrence Kohlberg views moral development as a process of internalisation. We begin externally by ‘going through the motions’ – mimicking narratives that contain the right social norms. These norms gradually become internalised as our comprehension of their moral meaning deepens and extends over time. Arguably, during the last three decades we were at least at the external stage of following anti-racist social norms and on a journey of internalisation. Telling people to ‘go home’ and using the ‘n’ word were generally socially condemned and sources of shame.
But the new political rhetoric, together with the explosion of racism on X, and events like the 2024 riots, have rudely stymied this internalising process. Ethnic minorities are losing the protection of social censure, and positive race narratives that normatively shape anti-racist thinking are being overwhelmed.
Creeping normalisation
This normalisation of racism is boosted by political inaction. Politicians and mainstream media are failing to challenge the outrageous racism of Trumpworld or its festering presence in the UK. This silence leaves a major vacuum in which tolerance, indifference and racist permissions flourish. Lewis Goodall notes that we’ve ‘become indifferent through exhaustion’: “Outrage blunted its edge through sheer overuse”.
Starmer promotes his anti-ideological approach as stable governance. But this non-committal caution entrenches our use of the “language and symbols of white supremacy” (Christina Pagel, Professor of operational research, UCL). Starmer has not only contributed to this narrative but, far from ensuring stability, his failure to lead by example with a bold, morally courageous counter-vision, is a recipe for increased chaos, social disintegration and polarisation. The creeping normalisation of overt racism isn’t something he can just ‘sit out’.
Bring back shame
To counter political and social lassitude, we must recognise that we have a civilizational crisis, just not the one envisioned by the anti-immigrant far-right. The real crisis is the potential erasure of the rights and safety, in this instance, of people of colour. Grasping the urgency of this threat should drive cross-party and cross-community discussion and policymaking on migration, racism and national identity in ways that rise above culture wars.
De-normalizing overt racism also needs teeth and visibility. Labour’s 2024 Race Equalities Act is a laudable plan to promote equal pay rights and rectify systemic inequalities. But these initiatives can’t fill the vacuum above. We need messaging that reaches deep into the cultural conversation.
The government has numerous resources for doing this but doesn’t use them effectively. The 2023 Online Safety Act, for example, enables OFCOM to fine X for not removing racist tweets. But its roll out has been feeble. In a 24-hour test period, X only withheld 8% of its hate content. Racists will feel emboldened until they see clear regulations, real accountability, and swift penalties.
These levers must also be visible across time, place and media platforms so that society can construct new conversations and social norms. These norms lead to peer pressure and behavioural modelling, replete with ‘that’s not cool’ signals, that can revive the old shame, curb racist impulses, and encourage cross-racial dialogue and understanding.
Such initiatives must be underpinned by a bolder vision from government. It’s not sufficient to have an anti-racist Code of Conduct on their website. They need commitment animated by messaging that is clear, energetic, consistent and emotionally authentic enough to cut through the right-wing media wall.
Going forward
The ugly reappearance of overt racism is a major backwards step and a stain on our humanity. Since the norms that control racism are fragile, people of colour may never be 100% safe from abuse. But 2024/5 was a wake-up call to change direction fast and kickstart the necessary process of countering this evil.
Alisdaire Hickson – Creative Commons
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