In the wake of all the protests, I feel nothing but sadness for how broken our once a great country has become. I do not condone the use of violence during these recent protests but I fear it is a sign of worse to come. The one in Rotherham; unfortunately a town with a deep seated mistrust of Asian men after the Labour council covered up the Asian grooming gangs scandal for years; took place only a few minutes away from where I live and where I and my family enjoy walking around the local country park. More disturbing than the violence itself were the amount of women with infants and young children turning up to watch the fray, since these children will now grow up seeing violence and intolerance as acceptable behaviour.

Historically Britain is a country made up of people from other cultures and faiths who chose to settle here following their invasions; Vikings, Saxons, Romans, Normans and in more recent post WW2 history, Indian, Pakistani, West Indian and many other nationalities have been welcomed to live and work in Britain and who have contributed to our culture and society in many positive ways. 

The British people are generally tolerant and it takes a lot to get them riled up but unfortunately; thanks to the new government, like the previous one, having lied to us; many people are reaching breaking point. I can understand their anger as they see more and more British families, veterans and pensioners being made homeless and/or living in poverty; and who would be grateful for a hotel room or military barracks; or getting no justice for crimes perpetrated on them or their children whilst migrants appear to be housed for free in hotels and going unpunished for the months on end it takes to process their asylum claims. However, violence is never the answer. It is now nearly a decade since we voted to leave the EU with the promise of being able to control immigration but over the intervening years matters have only got worse. Whilst the ridiculous requirements allowing them and their families to remain; introduced by the last government; have made it so difficult for those migrant workers we do need to the point that many have decided to abandon these shores altogether we are seeing more and more migrants entering the country illegally with no effective means of either slowing the influx or rapidly processing their asylum status. Maybe if our government stopped paying the French ridiculous amounts of money for doing absolutely nothing because they’d rather not have the problem on their shores or pouring money into immigration control schemes doomed to failure they could use the money more effectively by employing enough people to process asylum claims in a more timely manner, thus reducing the need for excessive migrant housing. And maybe offering any unused housing reserved for migrants to needy families and the homeless would go a long way to alleviating their anger. I doubt that will happen any time soon so the resentment will fester and continue to be ripe for the picking by the organised far right militia groups who will continue to seize on tragic events and the anger of the disenchanted, whipping it up into unfounded hatred to suit their own political agendas. By using immigration as the excuse they are able to target not just migrants but any innocent, law abiding citizens who don’t fit their skewed view of what it means to be British. And yes, I agree that everyone involved in the recent violence should be punished, but this government, to my mind, rather than dealing with the root cause of the problem is merely trying to treat the symptom and adding fuel to an already raging inferno. Kier Starmer has stated that “People in this country have a right to be safe”.  That should mean ALL people no matter their race, religion or immigration status.

Obviously this new government is going to be no better than the last one. In fact, based on it’s performance in it’s first month, I would go as far as to say they’re going to be  worse…..far worse. Glad I didn’t vote for them.