Following the racist and Islamophobic race riots of the weekend, many middle-class politicians, columnists, and journalists on the right and centre-right have felt the need to distance themselves.
Coincidentally this has happened with the most hateful of pundits, no doubt after their lawyers have reminded them laws about inciting hatred also apply to social media now too.
While many have accused Labour Party PM Keir Starmer (both rightly and wrongly tbf) of not doing enough, more than a fair few have laid the brick of blame at the left’s door.
One such accuser was ‘feminist’ Julie Birchill, who usually devotes her time to bullying trans people and pulling apart women she disagrees with.
In a tweet Burchill said:
There are thugs on both sides – but this is, among other things, actual class war. That the working-class aren’t the way the middle-class Left wanted them to be is no doubt ‘appalling’ – so I suggest the Left-wing commentariat retire to their fainting couches until it’s all over.
I’m not going to break down the actual tweet because her hateful little ilk already gets too much attention, but there is something in what she’s saying about class wars. Except the point is usually as far away from the truth as these agitators are from the communities that are getting destroyed.
This is a class war, but it’s not of the left’s doing.
A class war – but not of the left’s making
Those in power have a long history of turning the working class against each other so that they won’t pay attention to the cruel ways they’re destroying their lives.
Through a steady stream of speeches, legislation, and media bias, the rich middle-and upper-class arseholes on the right have managed to convince working-class people that their livelihoods and way of life have been taken away from them by people who need the most support in society.
While it’s great that the Daily Mail is getting called out for its part in this, that hate-filled paper doesn’t exist in a vacuum. We also need to look at the ways in which every other tabloid and broadsheet has spread lies about marginalised people – and not just those on the far right.
But the left-leaning journos and pundits aren’t ready for that conversation. And their regulator certainly doesn’t give a toss whilst they refuse to broaden their guidelines to protect groups as well as individuals.
Demonising those the system already marginalises
For decades now those in power – either elected or by virtue of the platforms they’ve been afforded – have turned the lower classes on each other. There’s been a deep-rooted poisonous campaign to turn working-class people against anyone who doesn’t fit into the right-wing world view.
We’ve seen it with disabled people labelled benefit scroungers and stealing taxpayers’ money all while there’s £42 BILLION in unpaid taxes a year.
Trans people are called groomers and pedos whilst statistically far more people are abused by cis men in their own homes. And any services that help women are constantly under attack from both budget cuts and far-right ideologies.
The way asylum seekers have been made the enemy is just vile though, and it’s all been perpetuated by the ruling class so we don’t look at them.
It’s far easier to blame a big bad “swarm” of Muslim men “invading” our shores than it is to take a look at the fact that there are a whopping ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FIVE billionaires just in the UK alone. And that’s down by 12 from 2022 (insert tiny violins).
The arguments in the race riots
One of the arguments in the racist and Islamophobic riots is the age-old “Muslims are stealing our jobs”.
Muslims didn’t close down the shipyards and coal mines, taking away the livelihoods of many in working-class communities then paint them all as lazy so-and-so’s who just sit on their arses drinking beer all day and collecting the dole – whilst providing them with no support to actually work.
I find it truly perverse that the people holding all the cards – with all power, wealth, and influence – have managed to convince the working class that the real enemy is those who are as worse off or even worse off than them.
It wasn’t Muslims, disabled people, or trans people that made food prices soar, the energy companies hike up their prices, or that defunded and carved up public services.
People like Farage, Robinson, Tice, Hartley-Brewer, Rowling, and Fox may not make the laws – but they certainly benefit from them being upheld and restricting working-class people’s way of life.
Riots serve the rich better than revolution
So you’ve got to ask yourself why then they’ve painted themselves as saviours of working-class people, what does it benefit them?
But then if you were sitting high and mighty and only becoming richer at the top of the ladder, you would want those low down to keep punching down too. Because those in power know that if poor people stop fighting each other, they’ll climb up and come for them.
At the end of the day, it serves the rich much better for there to be civil unrest than a revolution, so they’ll keep poisoning us against each other.
Featured image via the Canary
