It's time to tell the racists to fuck off

Anti-racism norms are good and should be socially enforced

Photo credit: Dartford Borough Council. (Via Kent Current.)

We used to call August “silly season”, but this year it wasn’t very funny.

With the palpable sense of lips being licked, the summer news vacuum was somehow filled by a bunch of one-note right-wing commentators and far-right racists (in some cases not mutually exclusive groups), giddy at the idea that Britain had reached ‘boiling point’ over immigration, as evidenced not by a mass movement, but by a relatively small number of racists protesting outside asylum hotels.

To be clear, I really do mean small numbers. According to the Big Issue’s totting up, most of the protests around the country achieved numbers in the dozens or, in a few cases, low hundreds. Amusingly, the numbers were dwarfed by the attendance of each location’s nearest Park Run on the same weekend.

And this is where the protests probably would have ended, were it not for the simultaneous viral “Raise the Flags” campaign. Whether or not it was started by far-right activists, it was certainly embraced by them – and recent weeks have seen Union Jacks flown on lampposts and St George’s Crosses spray-painted on zebra crossings, and so on.

Then it all culminated last weekend with a genuinely sizeable protest organised by Tommy Robinson, which featured a rogues’ gallery of the worst people in the universe, from deadenders like Laurence Fox and Katie Hopkins, to self-radicalised billionaire Elon Musk, who spoke via video call to the rally and who seemed to endorse the overthrow of the British government.

Frankly, I found the whole spectacle intensely depressing, made more so by how weaponising Raise the Flags has proved to be an extremely smart move by the fascists.

By wrapping themselves in the flag, and daubing it on street furniture, they can send a clear message to asylum seekers, refugees and ethnic minority people in general, while maintaining plausible deniability that it is an act of intimidation: “What? How can this symbol be racist? It’s just the flag of our country!”

In other words, it’s an exact mirror image of how activists on the far-left will sometimes claim that ‘From the river to the sea’ is just an innocuous geographic description, instead of an extremely loaded term that both Hamas and the Anti-Defamation League agree has a clear antisemitic meaning.

The sleight of hand works too. I’ve lost count of the number of normal Tories I’ve seen on my Twitter timeline – including the official Conservative Party account – acting as useful idiots, pretending that the trend for flag-waving isn’t linked to anything sinister. I’m not sure why they’ve responded like this – though I guess street thugs do vote too.

“This flag? The one that was specifically raised as part of a viral racist intimidation campaign? Why would anyone have a problem with that?”

Anyway, this isn’t the most troubling consequence of the current moment.

What really disturbs me is that, taken together, these events are a clear demonstration that the anti-racism norms that have become deeply embedded in British society over the last generation or so are unravelling at alarming speed.

Obviously, this is hard to quantify, but I think it’s impossible to watch this video and not wonder if something hasn’t seriously fractured.¹

And this is far from the only horrifying recent example of such behaviour. Here’s another one, showing the sorts of people men who are Raising the Flag:

Then there are the various reports of other incidents around the country where nobody was holding a camera, like the Chinese takeaway that was sprayed with crosses and the words “GO HOME”.

It is difficult to draw any strong conclusions based on this haze of viral photos and videos, but I do think it is evidence that we have reached not a ‘boiling point’, but an inflection point. Today, in 2025, the norm has broken down. Too many thugs and racists feel as though they have been granted permission to behave terribly.²

So I worry that the drumbeat of racist protests, amplified by traditional media looking for a fight, and by a social media platform run by a madman, has unlocked a stochastic form of anti-social behaviour that will embolden others to behave the same way. The more we allow racist intimidation to become normal, the harder it becomes to return to a society where racism is considered beyond the pale.

And don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of other factors that have led us to the current moment. We can spin the wheel and point at everything from Brexit, to Elon Musk, to the collapse of the centre-right. Or maybe even to the ‘woke’ moment raising the salience of racial identity, or to an internet-connected world turning fringe conspiracy theorists into meaningful political actors. All are long-term causes of the protests.

Similarly, I am very happy to acknowledge that the racists even have a kernel of a point. Net migration has been unusually high in recent years, which creates real integration challenges and does add pressure on public services.³

But as real as these contributing factors are, it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t also try to protect and rebuild the anti-racism norms that we used to take for granted:

That’s why I think what remains of civil society needs to tell the racists to fuck off.

Reasserting the norm

The most frustrating thing about whatever it is we’re calling this moment has been the wildly inadequate political reaction to the hate crimes and the racist intimidation.

Until recent days, almost across the board, mainstream politicians had been too afraid to address the racists head-on. This includes the Prime Minister himself, who was clearly too scared to say anything, out of fear of upsetting Reform-curious members of Labour’s 2024 coalition.

That’s why instead of condemning the racists, the wildly unsustainable line to take for weeks was “I get it”, followed by an intensely weak sauce quip about how proud he was to put the Union Jack on the Labour Party membership card.

The good news is that since the weekend, it appears that the government has shifted its position. On Sunday, a statement from Starmer was handed to the Guardian, saying that “Britain is a nation proudly built on tolerance, diversity and respect. Our flag represents our diverse country and we will never surrender it to those that use it as a symbol of violence, fear and division.”

The sentiment was then echoed in the readout given to journalists from the meeting of the Cabinet yesterday, which criticised the protesters and positioned the government as the agents of “patriotic national renewal” against the protesters’ “decline and toxic division”.

This is encouraging, but I still do not think it goes far enough. The way that norms are established and reinforced is by people visibly and publicly modelling good behaviour. Not just releasing statements to the Guardian.

This is how anti-racism norms were established in the first place.⁴ Over maybe forty years or so, public figures across civil society asserted that racist behaviour was bad – and made it clear that indulging in it was considered socially unacceptable.

So I think it is now time for the Prime Minister – not to mention other senior politicians from across the spectrum – to very publicly and very loudly attempt to reinforce the norm.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that liberal society engages in any ‘cancel culture’, in the style of the mania of the American left after George Floyd, or the American right after Charlie Kirk. I don’t want anyone to lose their job or have their life ruined. I don’t want the state to use its coercive powers to go after the racists unless they have committed crimes.⁵

Nor am I suggesting that the alternative to the current moment is that we embrace the more expansive and dumb definitions of ‘anti-racism’, pioneered by the likes of Ibram X Kendi.

What I want to see the Prime Minister and politicians do is strongly and publicly reassert the boring, traditional liberal argument that discriminating against people on the basis of their ethnicity is unacceptable – and unpatriotic.

Making the argument

So here’s the plan. It’s time to use the bully pulpit to draw a line in the sand. He needs to give a speech. A big one.

Now don’t get me wrong, though I may be an unapologetic fan of The West Wing, I’m not naive enough to think that a single speech can solve a nation’s problems. But the Prime Minister speaking in a very public setting creates news. It sends a message. It can reinforce norms.

That’s why if I were writing fan-fiction, I’d have Keir Starmer call a press conference outside Downing Street. Imagine a lectern in front of the door of Number 10, flanked by both the Union Jack and St George’s flag. And I’d have him set out in, stronger terms, a version of the argument that he finally landed on in that Guardian statement:

He should make it clear that the hotel protesters are not patriots, but thugs. And that our flags do not stand for hatred and discrimination – but for British values like respect, tolerance and the rule of law. Then maybe he shouldn’t tell the protesters to ‘fuck off’, per my suggestion, but that should be the clear sentiment.

And I genuinely do not think this is a hard argument to make. Even if there were (per some estimates) upwards of 100,000 people on the march, the overwhelming majority of voters – even most Reform-curious voters – do not endorse violence and disorder.⁶

In fact, the template for the argument has already been laid, by the Labour MP Lizzi Collinge, who represents Morecambe and Lunesdale.

I strongly recommend watching her recent speech in a Westminster Hall debate (above), commemorating the Battle of Britain, from September 2nd – the day after Parliament returned after the summer. It’s powerful because Lizzi doesn’t concede ownership of the flag or of patriotism to the racists. Instead, she explains:

“Now the far right will always exploit feelings of fear or insecurity, putting forward a false image of what true patriotism is. I believe we must push back against this false narrative and the lies of the far right. The people who promulgate this distortion entirely fail to see the values that really, truly bind us together as a nation. Values like democracy, fair play, the rule of law, kindness. Because to me, patriotism is not racial or cultural superiority. It's not ethno-nationalism. It's not the fear of others. Patriotism is not hating other people or undertaking violent acts, such as breaking into hotels and trying to make places that should be safe, unsafe.”

And moments later she goes on to say:

“Now there will always be those who will downplay the character of our country, who say that we can't fight global adversity and who urge us to turn inwards, to face away from the rest of the world. But they echo, I believe, the same misjudgment that the Nazis once made. The truth is that Britain's strength has always been in its resilience, in its openness and its refusal to give in to fear and hatred.”

Lizzi’s seat is not a safe seat. At the next election, given the demographics of her constituency, she will likely face her strongest challenge from Reform. Yet despite this, she has not remained silent, hoping that the racists will go away on their own.

Instead, she has done what is right both morally and politically. She talked about what the flag actually stands for. The Union Jack isn’t a symbol of hostility to outsiders, or to hatred of asylum seekers. As she says, it’s a symbol of modern British values – values that the racists stand in opposition to. So to paraphrase, if you’re a true, patriotic Briton, then you should stand in opposition to these mindless thugs too.

And if she can say it plainly, the Prime Minister should find the courage too. We shouldn’t let the anti-racism norms crumble. Keir Starmer – and the rest of civil society – should loudly reinforce the norm, and send a signal that racism is still unacceptable – and deeply unpatriotic.

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1. The irony of shouting “Save our kids”, while you’re extremely drunk and shouting racist abuse, with your kids in tow to watch and learn.

2. Not least because political leaders, councils and other institutions are seemingly refusing to enforce the law on graffiti and criminal damage.

3. Even though because I’m a liberal on this, I think that this is ultimately outweighed by the good things immigration does.

4. It’s worth noting just how recently things we’d consider wildly racist today was considered acceptable. I’m not even talking about the Black and White Minstrel Show (which ran until 1978!) – I’m talking about stuff like this Michael Barrymore clip from the early 90s.

5. I’m actually rather liberal on free speech. I think racist speech should be legally allowed – but where it crosses the line is when it clearly becomes an act of intimidation like in the above videos.

6. I can’t find any polling on support for violent protest this year, but this was true during the much wider disorder last year.