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The Red Circle. A racist revolt in England?

Diego Sacchi discussed these issues in his column on international news on the radio program El Círculo Rojo, which is broadcast every Thursday from 10 p.m. to midnight on Radio Con Vos.

Since the beginning of August, far-right groups have taken to the streets in several cities in England to attack businesses, homes and migrant centres.

Hull, Liverpool, Bristol and Belfast, among others, saw far-right groups, Nazis and football hooligans attack people in the streets simply because of their skin colour.

It all began after an attack on three girls in the north-west town of Southport (in the north-west of England). A wave of misinformation immediately spread about the suspect: that he was an undocumented immigrant and a Muslim.

The suspect, who is 17 years old, was born in Cardiff, the capital of Wales, and his parents are originally from Rwanda, a country where the majority are Catholic and only 2% are Muslim.

Those who instigated the attacks

Behind this campaign are figures such as Nigel Farage, at one time one of the main faces of Brexit, as well as the English Defence League (EDL), an Islamophobic movement.

But the anti-immigrant and Islamophobic rhetoric of successive Conservative governments also fuelled these groups. Robert Jenrick, now a candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party, said in Parliament, without evidence: “We have allowed our streets to be dominated by Islamic extremists.”

Let us remember that a few months ago former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak sent a floating prison to detain undocumented migrants before deporting them.

This “climate” where the focus is on migrants or people of Muslim faith, sought to cover up decades of adjustment and precariousness of life, both during the Conservative government, but also under the Labour government.

What responses were there?

The brutal attacks awakened an old English tradition, Augustus later brings us a musical memory: the union in the streets against the fascists.

While the Labour government tried for several days to stop the attacks by putting more police on the streets, without much success, in several cities young punks, anti-racist groups, left-wing groups and migrant organisations joined forces to confront the far right.

An example: on Wednesday, the far right had called for 100 demonstrations against migrant centres, mosques and cultural centres, in order to attack them. The response was massive demonstrations in defence of these places, the largest in London.

Conclusion: the fascists did not even show up.

This response against the far right has a lot to do with the thousands who took to the streets earlier as part of the massive movement against the Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip.
It became clear that the only way to stop the far right is by having thousands of people in the streets.

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