“Scapegoating has a wider function than attacking people for the skin colour or religion. It serves as a distraction for the rest of the population who are told to blame all their problems & the problems of society on these, other people.”
By Diane Abbott MP
The rise in racism and the austerity offensive are not the same thing. But they are clearly linked. They are both vital issues for the entire labour movement, and not just those directly affected.
When we say that racism is about scapegoating, that has two elements. The first is on those directly targeted, in Britain currently the chief (but not the only targets) are asylum-seekers, Muslims and Black people.
But scapegoating has a wider function than attacking people for the skin colour or their religion. It serves as a distraction for the rest of the population who are told to blame all their own problems and the problems of society on these, other people.
It is the classic tactic of divide-and-rule, and it is no accident that opinion polls show it really took off in this country in 2012, when it was obvious that austerity was not going to work in terms of leading to recovery and then higher living standards. The more workers and the poor were losing out, the more imperative became the need to find someone else to blame, rather than the Tory-led Coalition who imposed austerity.
It is worth reminding people that the official LibDem policy in 2010 was for an amnesty for illegal immigrants, and that Labour’s catchphrase for the election was ‘I agree with Nick [Clegg]’. Those days are long gone.
The 2010 election and every defeat since has been greeted by with cries from the Labour right that ‘we weren’t tough enough on immigration’, based on no evidence at all. The main exception was in 2017 when a Labour opposition turned the tables on the Tories and, rather than trying to match their reactionary agenda, we set out a programme to benefit ordinary people, to uphold the principles of equality not discrimination, and to set out a foreign policy based on peace, not forever wars.
Initially, the leadership that eventually won the 2024 election took the knee in honour of Black Lives Matter. So, it cannot be said that they did not at least genuflect in the direction of antiracism. But things have been very different since, culminating in the notorious “island of strangers” speech.
As ever the context matters. We are in a period now of the longest fall in real wages since the Napoleonic era and may soon exceed that. The choice becomes stark.
Either we could blame the banks, energy companies, landlords and privatised companies who have ripped us off, and the governments who not only allowed it, but cut public sector pay and raised all our taxes too. That would be the objective and the fair thing to do.
Or, we could decide to protect all these interests, and instead blame asylum-seekers, migrants, Black people and Muslims for our woes. That is what successive governments have chosen. We have even seen government appointments based on the denial of racism against Black people at all, and countless articles to support them.
We even have a whole new party, conjured into existence by Donald Trump, various financial market speculators and right-wing ideologues which has only one real policy; blame everything on the migrants. Reform UK now leads the polls.
It is in the vital interests of the entire labour movement to clear society of this crud. That cannot be done by ducking the issue of racism, because it is used to divide us. We must confront it head-on and defeat it by mobilising for our common interests.
- This is part of our Building a Fighting Left hard-copy bulletin, also featuring Apsana Begum, Jess Barnard, BFAWU and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which is out now at https://bit.ly/buildingafightingleft
- Diane Abbott is the Member of Parliament for Hackney North and Stoke Newington: you can follow her on Facebook, Twitter/X and Instagram.
- If you support Labour Outlook’s work amplifying the voices of left movements and struggles here and internationally, please consider becoming a supporter on Patreon.
It is too easy to shout ‘Racism’ when people say ‘England is overpopulated’. Look at the numbers.
Take Brexit as an example.
We supported Brexit because we didn’t want the millions of EU citizens who had migrated into England under ‘Freedom of Movement’.
They should have gone home to Europe when Brexit was achieved. They should be sent home now.