We need to stop turning on migrants and understand where the real power and blame lies

These last few weeks, we have descended into a collective social hysteria – whether it is the long-running so-called ‘Asian grooming gangs scandal’, new police guidance to reveal the nationality and migration status of criminals, or the commitment to deport foreign nationals convicted of crime – our political and media elites have whipped up a frenzy around the supposed inherent and disproportionate criminality of these people and by doing so, made all people of colour in this country less safe.

It was the Black mugger in the 1970s, then the Muslim terrorist in the 2000s. There is a textbook pattern to the way in which politicians and the media stereotype racialised people, and then make laws to appear ‘tough’ on these communities, giving the state and police increased power in the process, but very rarely making anyone safer.

Framed as a public safety concern – often hijacking women’s safety as cover – we have actors of all descriptions fanning the flames of racism. Whether it is MPs posting pictures of charity rowers and claiming they are people seeking asylum invading our shores, or Welsh locals harassing scout groups taking part in their summer camp because they’re presumed illegal migrants, or our home secretary promising league tables on the nationality of people convicted of crime; it seems we no longer need to subscribe to facts or evidence in our political discourse and activity.

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The competition is not to see who can lead with vision and values. It is to see who can most comprehensively villainise the migrant ‘other’ and solicit racist support.

This agenda is a convenient decoy when our economy is creaking with inequalities shaped by decades of austerity. It provides a short term distraction where the government can give the appearance of dealing with a problem. They can announce new police guidance, promise league tables, stand up new inquiries – but for all the frenzy, this noisy politics is deeply ineffective at making any difference to the day-to-day problems people face, and therefore breaches trust in our political system.

Take the myth of ‘two-tier policing’ that emerged in the context of last year’s racist riots. We had an incessant conversation about how harshly ‘protestors’ (violent racist mobs) were treated, alongside another conversation about how the police had failed to deal with child sexual exploitation because of fears of being called racist; we now have so called ‘vigilante’ groups emerging.

Their rationale – unsurprisingly, is that the state and police are inadequate – and they now have to take their, and especially white women’s safety, into their own hands. Let’s be clear, we are talking about groups of random individuals giving themselves authority to patrol the streets and protect British communities in a context of fear and suspicion about migrants and people seeking asylum. Women aren’t safer because of these groups – and people of colour definitely aren’t either.

As the Runnymede Trust recently outlined, and as decades of research show, politicians and the UK media play a dangerous and irresponsible role in sowing division and hatred. The language used has become increasingly brazen in its demonisation and these narratives drench our thinking.

Our latest report, which analysed 62.7 million words, 52,990 news articles and 317 House of Commons debates on immigration between 2019 to 2024, shows that  negative terms like “illegal”, “flood” and “influx” are persistently used in association with migrants, posing migrants and people seeking asylum as a threat, dangerous and as outsiders. “Illegal” remains the number one association for “immigrants”.

Politicians set the agenda, pumping out sensationalist policies and guidance, and the media plays along, greedily running with stories that dehumanise people and stoke division without any critical interrogation of the evidence and factual basis.

As with the ‘Black muggers’ and ‘Muslim terrorists’, people of colour have always been thrown under the bus at times of economic and political distress – but surely we ought to have learned that making monsters out of entire communities has never solved fundamental crises of material and economic inequality. Working class communities, which have never just been ‘white’, have been failed by successive governments. We need to stop turning on each other and see where the real power and blame lie.

Migrant and asylum status is not a badge we wear when we are out and about, and almost every person of colour I know, of settled or new migrant status, has had their sense of belonging and safety eroded in this last year since the riots. This government must take decisive action and change its narrative, policy and direction, because otherwise it is destroying the very fabric of our social and political contract – and that can only ever lead to a very dark place.

Dr Shabna Begum is CEO of the Runnymede Trust, a leading anti-racism charity.

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