URGENT, MEANINGFUL ACTION NEEDED TO PROTECT OUR COMMUNITIES

We’ve been watching in horror as racist, Islamophobic violence unfolds across our towns and cities. Community buildings and places of worship have been destroyed, hotels housing asylum seekers have been set alight and countless people have been harmed.

We must be clear: what we are seeing is not protest, it is violence carried out against some of the most marginalised in our society.  

No one should have to wonder whether they are safe to go to work or to take their children to school. This is the current reality facing communities of colour across our country, particularly Muslims and asylum seekers who are living in fear of violence and intimidation.

But we know that hope lies within people coming together to defend their neighbours and to rebuild after the destruction of their communities. People from all backgrounds are giving their time to repairing the damage on our streets and in the homes and places of worship of their community members. People are chipping into fundraisers to restore local libraries and advice services. And last night, we saw huge numbers of people coming together to say this violence is not in our name. These are the values that we must uphold in society.

We should not shy away from understanding how we got here. The violence unfolding on our streets is a culmination of the words of division spewed by politicians of all stripes alongside the actions of successive Governments that have restricted the rights of people of colour.

Whether it’s the Hostile Environment that baked racism and discrimination into Government departments and public services, making it impossible for migrants to access essential care and support.

Or the ramping up of policies like Prevent which has been shown to stigmatise Muslim children and young people and damage relationships between students and their teachers

Or the normalisation of dehumanising language like ‘invasion’, ‘swarm’ and ‘animals’ used by those in power to talk about people of colour.

What is needed now is decisive action by the Government to avoid the continued dehumanisation of communities of colour across our country.   

This includes pushing back against suggestions there is a system of ‘two-tier policing’ at play.

We look to the heavy-handed policing of the Sarah Everard vigil, the high number of arrests of protesters at the King’s Coronation (including for simply holding placards), and the disproportionate use of stop and search during Black Lives Matter protests as just a few examples.

Not only are protests already heavily policed, but successive Governments have attempted to give police even more powers to restrict protest in recent years. This has made it harder for the most marginalised in our society to exercise their right to protest and make their voices heard on the issues they care most about.

Suggestions of ‘two-tier policing’ further plays into a nonsensical conflation of legitimate protest and violence. This is dangerous and fails to face up to the reality of the racist violence unfolding on our streets, and risks threatening our right to protest.

Now is also not the time to reach for tools, like facial recognition technology, that appear as a quick fix to tackling violence but present a threat to our civil liberties.

The new Government cannot surveil its way out of racism and Islamophobia, and history tells us that surveillance tech will always be disproportionately used against communities of colour.

Nor is it appropriate to further add to the broad web of police powers on our statute books, as the Government and police have rightly said that there are sufficient powers available to respond to violence.

It’s down to the new Government to tackle the root causes of the racist violence unfolding on our streets. This includes naming the violence for what it is: racist and Islamophobic. It must also include an end to scapegoating rhetoric and instead, taking meaningful action to tackle the deep problems we face in our society.

In the days and weeks ahead, the Government must also ensure the safety and rights of asylum seekers, Muslim communities and people of colour, both now and in the future.