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00:00Joining me now is Dr Katie Brown, postdoctoral fellow at Maynooth University. Thanks very much
00:05for joining us on the programme today. So the accusation then that these riots appear to be
00:10stirred up principally by far-right posts on social media. Yeah I mean clearly social media
00:19has acted as a catalyst in this scenario in sparking these situations and events
00:27and social media is an important organising space for the far-right, it's a further outlet for
00:34far-right discourse and spreading misinformation. But what I'd also emphasise in this is that
00:41sometimes we can focus a little too much on the role of social media because it can detract
00:48attention from the way that these issues have longer-term origins within UK politics and more
00:55broadly. So this kind of violence doesn't just emerge from one incident, it requires a longer
01:01history of the dehumanisation of Muslims, asylum seekers and a normalisation of racism and
01:08anti-immigration politics within the UK. And that doesn't just come from social media, we've seen
01:14that from political parties, the Tory party, the previous government and the Labour party as well
01:21to some extent. So I think yes we need to think about the role of social media in this but we need
01:27to look at this more broadly and the political climate that has brought this about. And how
01:33long would you say you have to sort of go back if you like to see those origins starting to
01:38infiltrate, if that's the right word, society? I mean you can definitely talk about an escalation
01:46particularly in the post-Brexit years because Brexit was, there was a huge focus on anti-immigration
01:54politics within Brexit. But you know these kinds of, this kind of rhetoric was being
02:01spoken about many years ago as well. Margaret Thatcher spoke about people swamping the UK.
02:09So there's been within recent years a kind of escalation but this is something that also
02:18has a long history in UK politics. There's been particular criticism hasn't there of the leader
02:23of Reform UK, he's now an MP of course, Nigel Farage, accused of excusing far-right disorder.
02:31Yeah absolutely and I think that's another example of why focusing so much on social media
02:38does detract because Nigel Farage has been a key figure in this with when this very tragic
02:47incident happened he posted saying that we can question whether we've been told the whole truth.
02:54So he was directly feeding into this disinformation campaign and has since spoken about these
03:03riots as if they come from genuine concerns from people. So he is doing a lot to legitimise
03:15these riots. How can you counter it though because it's very difficult isn't it to tell
03:20broadcasters for example or newspaper editors not to represent the views of people who are
03:26either standing in elections or in the case of Nigel Farage have been elected?
03:31Yeah I mean I think it's obviously very complex on how to respond but I think we really need
03:38to focus on progressive alternatives and not feed into far-right discourses. So political parties
03:48have been campaigning on an anti-immigration basis in the UK election for example. You know
03:59Rishi Sunak stood in front of a podium which had stop the boats written in front of it and we've
04:04seen in these riots people chanting stop the boats and holding signs with that so you don't
04:12beat the far right by becoming them. We need progressive alternatives that put forward
04:21policies that impact on what people really care about, what impacts their day-to-day lives,
04:27the cost of living crisis, health, education. So we need to not try to defeat the far right on
04:36its own ground. Because of course the main criticism of particularly of these demonstrators
04:43if that's the word rioters other people would say is that of course the person accused of these
04:49crimes was actually born in the UK. Yeah and I mean it's just obviously it's just terrible that
04:59this kind of tragic incident has been manipulated in this way but as I was saying I think this does
05:06speak to the wider normalisation of racism that we've seen in the UK that has meant that this
05:14kind of climate has been created. So the Labour MP for Tamworth only five days ago spoke about
05:22people wanting in her constituency wanting their hotel back that was being used to house asylum
05:31seekers and that hotel just yesterday was attacked by these protesters. So we can see how political
05:40discourse can feed into the creation of a climate that allows this kind of violence to
05:47be emboldened and escalate. Thanks very much for joining us on the programme today Dr Katie
05:52Brown postdoctoral fellow at Maynooth University. Thanks very much.