Drawing on research into racist attacks in three cities, this article reveals a changing geography of racial violence in the UK (in terms of new areas and targets), and sets this in the context of the socially destructive impact of neoliberalism and government policies to manage the UK’s changing demographic make-up. With racial violence officially defined as just one form of ‘hate crime’, it is now divorced from any wider political context or racialised climate and reduced to a matter of individual pathology. The changing parameters of racism and the state’s responses present a challenge which the Left and anti-racists have been slow to meet.
According to research by the Institute of Race Relations, roughly five racist attacks per year have proved fatal in the UK since the teenager Stephen Lawrence was stabbed to death in London in 1993. See AthwalHarmit, ‘96 murders since Stephen Lawrence’s’, IRR News (5January2012), available at: http://www.irr.org.uk/news/96-murders-since-stephen-lawrences-2/
The Crime Survey for England and Wales used to be known as the British Crime Survey. Its name changed in April 2012 to better reflect the geographical area covered. It is based on information provided by about 50,000 people who are asked about their experiences of crime over the preceding year.
4.
AthwalHarmit, Jenny Bourne and Rebecca Wood, Racial Violence: the buried issue (London, Institute of Race Relations, 2010).
5.
See BurnettJon, The New Geographies of Racism: Plymouth (London, Institute of Race Relations, 2011); The New Geographies of Racism: Stoke-on-Trent (London, Institute of Race Relations, 2011); and The New Geographies of Racism: Peterborough (London, Institute of Race Relations, 2012). These reports can be downloaded from: http://www.irr.org.uk/research/geographies-of-racism/
For example, see NathanMax, ‘The economics of super-diversity: findings from British cities 2001–2006’, SERC Discussion Paper 68 (London, Spatial Economics Research Centre, 2011).
8.
RogersSimon, ‘The ethnic population of England and Wales broken down by local authority’, Guardian (18May2011).
9.
VertovecSteven, ‘The emergence of super-diversity in Britain’, Vancouver Centre of Excellence Working Paper No. 06-14 (Vancouver, Vancouver Centre of Excellence, 2006).
10.
See ReeveKesia, ‘New immigration and neighbourhood change’, in FlintJohnRobinsonDavid, Community Cohesion in Crisis? New dimensions of diversity and difference (Bristol, Policy Press, 2008), pp. 177–98.
Migration Watch UK, ‘The impact of chain migration on English cities’, Policy Briefing 9.13 (London, Migration Watch UK, 2005).
16.
FinneyNissaSimpsonLudi, ‘Sleepwalking to segregation?’ Challenging myths about race and migration (Bristol, Policy Press, 2009).
17.
Porter, ‘David Cameron: migration threatens our way of life’, Telegraph (13April2011).
18.
See HarveyDavid, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005).
19.
WacquantLoïc, Punishing the Poor: the neoliberal government of social insecurity (Durham, NC, Duke University Press, 2009).
20.
When in summer 2012, Labour leader Ed Miliband claimed that his party had got it ‘wrong’ in power by not imposing more stringent controls on those from the countries entering the EU in 2004 and 2007, the response from the Conservatives and the right-wing press was a bizarre mixture of self-congratulation and rage. Self-congratulation, because they said it confirmed how right they were all along, and rage because they claimed that Britain has been irreversibly altered for the worse, and this admission has come too late. For a prime example, see Stephen Glover, ‘So Labour now says it’s NOT racist to debate immigration. What sick hypocrisy’, Daily Mail (22July2012), available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2163445/Ed-Miliband-So-Labour-says-NOT-racist-debate-immigration-What-sick-hypocrisy.html
This information, and further specific information about racist attacks in Stoke, Plymouth or Peterborough, is taken from the respective investigations into racial violence, cited earlier.
23.
CantleTed, Community Cohesion: a new framework for race and diversity (London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).
24.
KundnaniA., The End of Tolerance: racism in the 21st century (London, Pluto Press, 2007), p. 85.
25.
‘Violence against refugees reaches new high’, Independent (16September2002).
26.
AthwalHarmit, Driven to Desperate Measures: 2006–2010 (London, IRR, 2010).
27.
AmeliSaied R.AhooeiEbrahim Mohseni, Ehsan Shaghasemi and Maryam Rahimpour, Getting the Message: the recurrence of hate crimes in the UK (London, Islamic Human Rights Commission, 2011).
For information on the night-time economy, see HobbsDick, Philip Hadfield, Stuart Lister and Simon Winlow, Bouncers: violence and governance in the night-time economy (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003).
32.
KundnaniArun, ‘From Oldham to Bradford: the violence of the violated’, Race & Class (Vol. 43, no. 2, 2001), pp. 67–72.
33.
See, for example, the discussion of this in Larry Ray and David Smith, ‘Racist offenders and the politics of “hate crime”’, Law and Critique (Vol. 12, no. 3, 2001), pp. 203–21.
34.
Following Stephen Lawrence’s death, and set against a backdrop of spiralling racist attacks, there had been calls from some quarters for a new offence of racially motivated violence to be incorporated into the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, but this never came to fruition, in part because of resistance by the home secretary Michael Howard. See LengRogerTaylorRichardWasikMartin, Blackstone’s Guide to the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 (London, Blackstone, 1998), p. 41.
35.
FeatherstoneLynne, ‘Foreword’, in Challenge It, Report It, Stop It: the government’s plan to tackle hate crime (London, HM Government, 2012), p. 4.
36.
See SivanandanA., Communities of Resistance: writings on Black struggles for socialism (London, Verso, 1990), pp. 94–5 and 146–7.
37.
For discussion, see, for example, RoweMichael, Policing, Race and Racism (Devon, Willan, 2004).
38.
GirouxHenry A., The Terror of Neoliberalism: authoritarianism and the eclipse of democracy (London, Paradigm, 2004), p. 57.
39.
Delivering a lecture thirty years after the 1981 riots in Brixton, south London, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg claimed that a ‘great deal’ had been achieved since the 1980s, but that there was still a ‘very, very long way to go’ in addressing inequality. He said that banks and football clubs needed to do more to eliminate the ‘racial ceiling’ in the respective professions. See ‘Nick Clegg targets “racial ceiling” in banks and sport’, BBC News (24November2011), available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15868844
40.
RoweMichael, op. cit., p. 105.
41.
For an overview of legislative developments see Home Office, Hate Crime – the cross-government action plan (London, Home Office, 2009).
42.
Challenge It, Report It, Stop It, op. cit.
43.
ColemanRoy, Reclaiming the Streets: surveillance, social control and the city (Devon, Willan, 2004).
44.
GordonPaul, ‘Community policing: towards the local police state’, in ed. ScratonPhil, Law, Order and the Authoritarian State (Open University Press, Milton Keynes, 1987), p. 134.
45.
FlintJohnRobinsonDavid, op. cit.
46.
For a discussion of criminal justice partnerships working more broadly, see CrawfordAdam, The Local Governance of Crime: appeals to community and partnerships (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1997).
47.
Netpol, Report on the Policing of the English Defence League and Counter Protests in Leicester on 4th February 2012 (London, Netpol, 2012), p. 2.
