Opinion | Broken Britain, a country on the brink as riots engulf cities
By Tom Fowdy
On Friday evening my hometown Sunderland was engulfed by a violent riot. Far-right demonstrators, aggrieved at a mass stabbing of little girls in Southport, Merseyside, the previous week, destroyed property and vehicles, started fires, and clashed with the police. Despite claiming that the march was to "protect our children" it proved to be nothing of the sort as it sought to indiscriminately unleash hate and violence in all directions. The events on Wearside would soon repeat across Britain, with riots sweeping multiple other towns and cities, especially in the north of the country, the focus again being anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment.
Although condemned by the vast majority of people, and anyone with common sense for that matter, the riots mark an escalation of a brewing political conflict in Britain over race and identity, which has also been escalated by the country's stagnant economy that has seen incomes shrink in real terms and a widespread increase disillusionment, the same phenomenon that has driven Brexit. This has been exacerbated by large surges of inbound immigration, despite the economy and a catastrophic problem with illegal immigration, which has been coined as the political taboo term "the boats". The result of this is massive resentment from some areas of society.
These issues have all been inherited by a new Labour government with a mega majority in the House of Commons. Never has there been such an urgent need for positive change and all eyes are on how Keir Starmer will handle this situation. At a minimum, we need immense investment in public services and institutions across the board following 14 years of a brutal Conservative austerity regime that has cut these provisions to the bone. Yet, owing to the previous government's mismanagement of the pandemic leading to the ballooning of national debt, the inflation crisis which has led to high sky interest rates, and the economic strain of Britain's confrontational response to the war Ukraine and the energy crises it has caused, that is easier said than done.
Beyond that, a key long-term aggravator of this political instability is the reality that Britain is geographically and structurally: unequal. The trajectory of this country's political and social direction did not in fact begin with the previous Conservative government, but in fact started with the one of Margaret Thatcher from 1979-1997. It was the policy of this administration to systemically destroy Britain's industrial base and force a shock transition to a Neoliberal, open market system. These policies led to mass unemployment in regions such as the North of England, destroying the lifeblood of communities while concentrating the core of the British economy in a small quarter of the City of London.
As someone from Sunderland, an area and region that was brought to knees by these policies, my life has involved growing up in the aftermath of it, facing great disillusionment, hopelessness and the social disorder that stems from it, with generations of "angry young men" growing up aimlessly, without direction, engaging in destruction, vandalism, and hooliganism for hobbies because the fabric of society was torn apart. Of course, not everyone is like that, yet the pathogen for some spreads from generation to generation and continues to persist in society. After the riots finished in Sunderland, the following day dozens of young teenage boys wearing balaclavas turned up in the city center enthused by the violence to look for trouble themselves. They proceeded to break windows and be a general nuisance.
Thus, from my perspective, people are critical of my political views and my favoring of Asian society above that of Western ones, but when you grow up in this kind of world and you get a broader perspective, why wouldn't you be like that? Statistically, my own life story and existence is an anomaly, that is because my background and life circumstances were so unfavorable that I should have simply been "one of these angry young men," pursuing nothing but trouble, violence, louting around and even drugs growing up. But instead, I found myself at Oxford in the end, and yet I have never forgotten my roots. I have long recognized that the economic, and social status quo of my country is deeply flawed. The disillusionment of my upbringing persists, just in a different way.
Likewise, I have long perceived that Britain is in a state of decline, and I am pessimistic about the future, and the events of the past few days have been very emotionally distressing to me. Unless Britain is made more equal and more stable, the sources of this political and identity conflict will continue with grave consequences for everyone, and I do not wish to see the good people of Britain from ethnic-minority backgrounds suffer because of it.
The author is a well-seasoned writer and analyst with a large portfolio related to China topics, especially in the field of politics, international relations and more. He graduated with an Msc. in Chinese Studies from Oxford University in 2018.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
Read more articles by Tom Fowdy:
Opinion | India's dramatic and unexpected U-turn on China Policy
Opinion | Life goes on in Hong Kong
Opinion | Another twist of fate in the saga of the 2024 US election
Comment