Let's hear it from the Younge

Gdurnai columnist G Younge has a go at explaining the 'far right' triumph which he expects:

The seeds of Trump, Brexit and Modi’s success were sown by endemic racism and unfairness. Tackling that is the answer 

Sooner or later progressives are going to have to stop being stunned by these electoral defeats. The first time, it is plausible to ask, “How could this possibly happen?” But when that possibility recurs in relatively short order, what once presented itself as a shock has now curdled into self-deception. It turns out that the country you woke up in is the precisely the one you went to bed in. If you still don’t recognise it then you are going to have real problems changing it....There are any number of lessons we might draw from this moment – for instance, the fact that our capacity to stage marches has outpaced our ability to build effective movements or the media’s efforts to maintain credibility. 

But then the main theme:

the countries which keep producing these shocks are every bit as racist, xenophobic and discriminatory as their voting habits suggest [bit circular here but never mind] ...not because everyone who voted for them was racist, but because all the racists who did go to the polls voted for them.

There is some evidence:

In January 2016, [an Opinium poll of just over 1000 people 'from ethnic minorities'] 64% of people from an ethnic minority said they had been targeted by a stranger. That’s before Brexit, and already terrible. That proportion rose to 76% this year. Things were bad. They are getting worse.[ Other 'evidence' includes]  headlines about racism in Britain, from the BBC’s sacking of Danny Baker for tweeting a picture of a couple with a chimp following the birth of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s baby, to growing anger from professional footballers at racism online and in stadiums.[Curiously 'There were small falls in the number of people who felt they were victims of more tacit forms of discrimination such as being treated with suspicion by police or security guards, being turned down for promotion at work or suffering workplace bullying'].

It was all a nasty right-wing conspiracy:

Racism was the wedge the enemies of cosmopolitanism and plurality used to prise open a broader cleavage that is dividing us all....These rivers run deep – winding through empire, imperialism, caste, settlement, colonialism, white supremacy and beyond. That’s not all these countries are. Wherever there is bigotry you will find an impressive tradition opposing it and a potential audience willing to be weaned off it [so why has racism triumphed?]

It is also the fault of the gestural anti-racists:

It’s not clear this lesson has been learned. Most, but by no means all, remain devotees I have encountered are far more fluent in the language of race accusation (pointing out the bigotry of the Brexiters) than in the anti-racist activism that would put a racially diverse and plural Britain at the heart of their worldview. Some would be happy if we went back to the way we were before we voted to leave. But that would mean returning to a place where two-thirds of ethnic minority people faced racial abuse. No wonder these second referendum marches are so white....There is no denying that bigotry, once embedded in a political culture, is difficult to excise. But it cannot be avoided for reasons of expediency and complicity either. That is in no small part how we got here: people who knew better eschewing “difficult conversations” because it would cost them votes....There is precious little value in pointing out, once every four or five years, that racism is a problem if you are not advocating an agenda in the intervening time that posits anti-racism as a solution. 

Thing is, though, that gestures are easy, but it is hard work to grasp and then tackle racism, as Younge himself sees:

Concerns about high class sizes and over-stretched welfare services are obviously legitimate; blaming ethnic minorities for them is obviously not. 

Not that long ago,this might have led to a debate in the Graun about the best way to tackle racism -- 'colour-blindness',anti-racism, equality programmes etc. It has been much easier for the Graun to stand on the grounds of 'cosmopolitanism and plurality' and to use racism as a convenient stick to beat Brexiteers with. I insist that the middle and upper classes are every bit as racist as the working classes and for similar ideological reasons -- racism is a proxy.