A former Brexit Party MEP has claimed the white working classes are not being listened to, and that’s what led to the far-right riots over the last week and a half.
Alex Phillips, who is now a broadcaster with Talk, told BBC Newsnight there are a “myriad” of causes behind the anti-migration unrest which has swept through the country in the last week and a half.
She said that included socio-economic reasons and the polarising language around migrants – while also claiming that not enough attention was being paid to the white working classes.
Phillips said a lot of the industries which these young men who have been involved in the riots) used to work in have now gone, and that the UK is still importing cheaper, labour from abroad.
“These young men frankly don’t have the dignity of work,” she said. “At the same time, they are accused of being lazy, the things they used to enjoy and find respite in, the comedy they would enjoy, is being cancelled.”
“Perhaps we need to take stock of why there is such resentment now within the white working classes,” she said.
However, presenter Katie Razzall hit back: “There’s a lot of people who don’t get what they want, but they don’t end up resorting to street violence.”
The former MEP replied: “Yeah, but I’ve already made it very clear that the street violence is a minority!
“There’s a lot of Muslims who might feel disenfranchised who don’t then plan bomb attacks.
“I think we can’t be reductive about our language and I think that is what’s been going on here.
“I think there’s a whole class of people out there who frankly feel rather bullied and rather silenced and judged, they’re feeling as though they don’t matter anymore.
“And yes, there are extremists who then try to profit from that, they try to capitalise on that,” she said. “That is the fertile ground of resentment within which they’re going to start being able to turn people around to their narrative.
“But what we can’t do is turn around and say it’s not respectable to talk about immigration or their concerns aren’t valid.
“You’re closing down their concerns, denying them a voice, and do you know what?
“They’re not going to be Oxford graduates who have the right sort of language to communicate these things effectively.
“What we don’t need to do is start pointing the finger of blame and start saying, ‘you’re the problem!’ Listen to them!”
The former Labour mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees, who sat next to Phillips on Newsnight, said that he believed concerns around migration have been listened to in recent years.
“It’s on every week! It’s not whether there’s a conversation around immigration or not that’s the issue, it’s the quality of that conversation, and that people are being led to believe that immigration is their number one issue,” he said.
Phillips’ comments come shortly after a clip of a “anti-racist, working class” woman went viral for saying “immigrants make our society better”, and days after counter-protests filled the streets to deter further rioting from far-right extremists.