Combatting hate crime must be matched with the right rhetoric

Combatting hate crime must be matched with the right rhetoric

Prime Minister Theresa May has clearly come out against hate crime: “Hate crime has no place in Britain.”
 
We applaud her statement - and her accompanying pledge that “As long as hate crime exists, we must challenge ourselves to do more.”
 
Now we challenge her to ensure that her government lives up to her promise, because we are concerned that some political rhetoric in recent weeks contribute to a climate of hostility towards migrants.
 
For example, in her speech to the recent Conservative Party conference the Prime Minister said that immigration works against the cohesion of society.
 
Home Secretary Amber Rudd stirred more controversy with her statement that businesses should have to declare how many employees were foreign.
 
And International Trade Secretary Liam Fox put tit-for-tat political considerations above Britain’s duty of care when he said the uncertain status of EU migrants now living in the UK was a card to be used in negotiations.
 
These and similar comments run counter to the UK’s vision as a major global player, a world trader and an international cultural hub with a tradition of treating citizens and visitors fairly.
 
The danger of many of the comments that have been made is that they are examples of “dog whistle politics” – the trick of making statements that are on one level innocuous but which simultaneously tell listeners that the speaker shares their prejudices and thus indirectly gives permission for bigotry.
 
This is incendiary, as the post-referendum spate of attacks on foreigners has shown.
 
Once people feel that government statements give them the go-ahead to abuse others, restraints are off: that is when prejudice, discontent and fear – however unjustified – can tip over into violence.
 
Migration has become an emotive issue and it is therefore incumbent on politicians to approach the subject honestly and fairly. We are talking about people’s lives – literally in the case of migrants being attacked and even murdered in the fetid atmosphere that some politicians have allowed to build up in the wake of the referendum.
 
A national newspaper reported recently that of 17 embassies in London, almost half reported a rise in incidents of xenophobic abuse in the 12 weeks following the referendum. Those incidents included shots being fired, an arson attack and a break-in in which a Latvian family was sworn at and told to leave the UK.
 
There is widespread concern among migrants about the rise of overt prejudice and about their personal situations. The government must make it unequivocally clear that whatever political decisions are made about the European Union in the coming months and years, migrants have important roles to play, are appreciated, and will be treated fairly and with respect.