”I just really want this to be all over”

Rory Hamilton

A week ago a Citizens’ Advice Bureau in Sunderland was set alight amid rioting and violence from EDL and Nazi-adjacent members in the city roughly 10 miles south of Newcastle. Police officers had beer barrels thrown at them, and cars were set alight.

The violence was but one in a series of riots across (mostly) England and Northern Ireland that began last week, spurred on by misinformation spread on social media (and hyped by X’s own Elon Musk), and rooted in the toxic rhetoric regarding immigrants spread by politicians (of all stripes) over the last 25 years, not to mention the community-stripping effects of austerity that has devastated cities, towns and neighbourhoods since 2010.

As of this week, serious violence has not yet spread to Scotland (or Wales as far as I’m aware), however with demonstrations organised by Tommy Robinson and his ilk for the 7th September in Glasgow, I urge all those who can to attend the counter-demonstration organised by those across the progressive left, from the STUC, to Stand up to Racism to the Radical Independence Campaign.

I spoke to Jessica, a white English mother of two, formerly a primary school head teacher, now an English tutor, married to a Muslim, Tamil-speaking Sri Lankan man Sanas. Jessica has lived in Newcastle for just over a year, originally hailing from North Northumberland herself, but having met Sanas whilst both working in the hospitality sector in Dubai. In 2022, Sri Lanka entered an economic and political crisis, caused in part by a spike in bond rates, as well as the mass resignation of cabinet ministers, and a series of leadership changes in the Presidency and the Prime Minister’s office, all within an eight month period. During this time Sri Lanka entered into a debt-restructuring programme under the IMF, and between this, and the ongoing world energy crisis, aided and abetted by incompetent management, food and fuel prices soared, leaving ordinary Sri Lankans to effectively ration and fend for themselves, with National Guard curfews and limited resources for cooking, eating and power, often causing scenes of civil unrest.

Owing to Jessica’s British citizenship, her two children Tariq, now aged eight, and Layla, now aged five, were able to move to a modest flat in Newcastle, where they could be near Jessica’s English family, and in relative safety and security. After a long immigration battle which lasted over six months, and the aid of many friends, including myself and a now-STV news presenter, to put pressure on the Home Office, Sanas was able to join his family and take up a job in Michelin star restaurant kitchen.

“Two weeks ago that wouldn’t have even been in my mind. All these daily fears are realities now, especially with him working late nights. I’m really grateful that everyday [since the riots started] someone has dropped him home so he wouldn’t have to get the bus.”

“Sanas himself isn’t that bothered by it, but he grew up in a traumatic environment [the Sri Lankan Civil War].”

In my conversation with Jessica I detect two things: firstly, that she is very aware of the privilege she carries as a white woman in the UK, compared to her husband, as well as her friends and children, “I don’t think I can ever really feel the [same] fear”; and secondly, that she feels this position gives her the opportunity to see the threats that the rest of her family face clearly situated in the context of ongoing events, causing her to realise the genuine danger posed to the rest of her family.

“I just never thought I’d be saying to [my husband] don’t use your own language. He uses his [bus] travel time to talk to his family home in Sri Lanka. […] I never thought I’d been saying don’t go to the Friday prayer, you’re definitely not taking the kids to the Friday prayer [because of a fear for their safety].”

It’s not a simple case that these events are isolated incidents. The impact on daily life is tangible for Jessica and Sanas’s family, with something as normal as prayer now seen as a risk. This week there have been multiple reports of businesses, organised meetings, recreational clubs advising members to either take caution when travelling to events or advising them to stay at home, with some going as far as cancelling meetings which might find members putting themselves at risk to get to during their travels.

Jessica herself worries this almost omnipresent feature of the threat of racist violence, and the violence itself, might have a negative impact on her children’s association with their father and their Muslim, Tamil-speaking Sri Lankan heritage.

“It is scary to me that this is a world where kids are growing up in. And that they may feel embarrassed about a part of their life, or they might want to turn their back on a part of their culture. […] or maybe this, if not knocked on the head, they might feel embarrassed or uncomfortable going about with their Dad.”

But, there are multiple strands to this violence, and the solution must be met by dealing with them in different ways. Of course, on the one hand there is a very real, political element to them: their organisation, the connections to radical right organisations and neo-Nazi groups, not to mention the chanting of ‘Stop the Boats’ and ‘Allah, Allah, who the f**k is Allah’. Clearly the violence and aggression has a racist, and specifically Islamophobic motivation driven by a political ideology which targets immigrants as scapegoats for broader societal ills. This culture is permeated right down from the previous Conservative government (lest we forget the immigration vans of Kenmure Street, or the hostile environment of Theresa May), to Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper’s hard lines on immigration, to the online stirrings of Tommy Robinson. So there is clearly a political element, targeting not just Muslims but people of colour more broadly. 

Secondly, we should consider why people turn to these groups. My colleague, Kaitlin wrote a very strong article about Scotland’s Young Teams and the relationship between poverty and gang culture, not so long ago, and I feel many of the same connections can be drawn. While I may lack the data to back up my hypothesis, I might suggest over a decade of austerity, which has stripped communities of resources such as community centres and extra-curricular activities, not to mention push millions into poverty, has caused people to seek alternative means of relating to one another. Clubs, political parties, gangs, membership organisations which provide some level of community, support and culture to cling to will pick up those at the harshest end of effects of poverty, and egged on by a political and media discourse couched in terms that demonises immigrants and ‘people who don’t look like us’.

Jessica was very aware of this context: “this hasn’t just started now. […] Ever since the election began, and there was a heightened political awareness … [Layla] is only five and since [the election campaign began] she’s already had two kids say to her they didn't want to play with her because she was brown. In a very mixed school, where it is pretty equal, white-non-white kids - quite shocking, quite painful, and makes me think about other schools which aren’t so mixed, and maybe don't [have the same level of] pastoral care, what are those kids facing.”

For Jessica, its apparent that care sits at the heart of the solution to this issue in British society. Her answers to me were descriptive of taking immigration out of the justice system and treating it as a care issue, whilst also putting investment into communities in order to be able to deliver services, not just those which would be specifically required by those building a new life in the UK, but universal services, such as a library, such as the NHS, such as our schools, which would reduce stigma and provide focal points around which communities can form their identities and build-in those values of multiculturalism.

Instead, what we have been left with is a political culture which sees immigrants and people of colour as scapegoats, and creates a narrative of them as second-tier citizens. And while the talk of ‘trickle-down economics’ is wholly disproved by the hoarding of wealth at the top, the trickle down of this racist discourse is evident in daily life for Muslim families like Jessica and Sanas: “People think their typically negative behaviour is now validated.”

But Jessica sees hope in her communities too, “Newcastle itself isn’t like Sunderland, where there were big riots. It’s very [multicultural], and I don't think we will see in Newcastle city centre what we saw in Sunderland, […] these whatever they call themselves would be outnumbered.”

And she would be proven right. Images from Thursday night saw thousands of people up and down the country mobilise in anti-fascist demonstration against the rioters of the last week, and in Newcastle too the response was defiant.

It is peak cricket season and Jessica sends me a picture of Tariq at the home of English cricket, Lord’s. He’s a wonderful eight-year-old with a wicked ability on the cricket pitch, a smile that would knock your socks off, and a wonderful kindness and compassion. I’ve been buoyed to see images of him and his sister gladly joining their mother and father on ceasefire for Gaza demonstrations, and hope that this period of turbulence in his life shapes him into a strong, confident and assured individual with a deep sense of social justice. But children that age shouldn’t be having to build the resilience that racism and war requires - let them be children. 

In his mother’s words, “I just really want this all to be over.”