Why did they riot?

To love your enemy, you must first see the world through his eyes, understand your own errors, repair them and atone for them, then, if necessary, you may fight him.

Our aim has always been to understand those we analyse.

Therefore, I invite even those who instinctively loathe the British rioters and call them far right to read the below with an open mind, and to try to understand the grievances of those who were rioting, especially as it is quite likely that they will riot again.

Our role here is not to take a side, but to steel-man the arguments of those whom we might not agree with.

After all, if these were terrorist attacks in Israel, or riots in Egypt or Turkey, the media would be flooded with pieces explaining the grievances of the terrorists or the rioters.

Let us extend the same courtesy to the British working class, to which most of the protesters belong, given that we owe it so much.

The level of immigration in recent years has been extreme and unprecedented, public figures show.

Immigration

The British public regularly voted for parties that promised to reduce migration, but the state has raised migration to unprecedented and obviously unsustainable highs. Not to mention hosting illegal migrants in hotels at taxpayers’ expense, which is a novel and globally exceptional policy - the equivalent of inviting in an infinite number of people.

Record migrant numbers raise youth unemployment – youngsters begin their careers with low-skilled, low-paid jobs, and British law allows migration by individuals with very low incomes. This imposes unfair competition on British youth, weakens their earning prospects and delays steps like marriage and having children.

Furthermore, there are other costs to migration, including more pressure on roads, schools, trains, utilities and health services. The protesters claim that the costs outweigh the benefits.

Saying that migration is necessary to keep these services going forces the question: why not train more British youth and pay them more, or invest in capital to raise productivity? This would raise living standards for all. Is that not the moral thing to do?

Saying that migration raises general demand for goods and services is economically illiterate: migrants on low wages compete with the native poor for jobs, rental properties, cheap goods, and state-subsidised services. This competition may help the upper classes, but it certainly harms the native working classes and the lower middle classes.

How do we expect the poor to respond to a policy that impoverishes them, and which they cannot democratically change?

Integration

Opponents of large scale migration do not believe people are merely economic cogs who would always fit in and be productive wherever they go. Rather, they believe that different cultures have different values and identities. Without shared values to define what is good, and without shared identity to define what is common, it is harder to develop a shared idea of a common good. I explore this line of reasoning here.

Opponents of mass migration point out that even Angela Merkel admitted that multiculturalism does not work. Therefore, there is no reason to continue with high levels of migration until it is proven that integration and assimilation are possible.

The greater the number of migrants, the lower the pressure to assimilate, as simply forming a parallel society becomes the preferred option.

Opponents of mass migration believe that the state should either force minorities to integrate or deport them. For them, it is scandalous that there were so few deportations of the mostly Pakistani Muslim men who were convicted of the mass abuse of young girls, or of the tens of thousands of non-native people on terrorism watch lists.

What incentive is there to integrate, if even rape and terrorism are so lightly punished?

Two-tiered policing

From the protesters’ perspective, the police use a very light touch when handling unrest by ethnic minorities but can be quite heavy handed with native protesters. The police allowed antisemitic protesters, the protesters allege, to march freely in London after the 7 October Middle East war. These protesters carried Hamas and Hezbollah flags - both considered terrorist in the UK.

The police – and Sir Keir Starmer – knelt during Black Lives Matter protests and riots. They even allowed protesters to climb up the Cenotaph, the memorial to the British and Commonwealth soldiers who gave their lives in the World Wars. People who desecrate such monuments clearly do not have a strong loyalty to Britain. Why kneel for them?

One of the many instances of the police kneeling for BLM rioters.

Tactically speaking, the police’s behaviour is understandable. The native British public mostly views the police as legitimate and accepts its authority. The ethnic minorities may or may not. Policing them with anything other than a very light touch risks widespread rioting and may require the intervention of the military, due to communal solidarity within migrant groups.

More embarrassingly, however, the police take online “hate speech”, that is, blasphemies against the woke dogma, very seriously. On the other hand, they fail in their basic policing duties.

In England and Wales, 75% of burglaries were not solved, according to the latest figures. 82% were unsolved in London. The courts issued a charge or summons for just 5.7% of reported crimes in the year from April 2022. In some jurisdictions, 100% of crimes go unsolved! Moreover, to deal with prison overcrowding, courts are often issuing less harsh sentences for rather serious crimes.

This would suggest that only the dumbest and unluckiest criminals are getting caught. Things are set to get worse, as the public reports less crime due to low expectations from the police, and as the police prioritises the “far right” over solving crimes.

The perception that the police are tough on natives but easy on migrants and incompetent against criminals increases the motivation to protest and to fight the police. If a state refused to defend its citizens anywhere other than in Britain, pundits would unanimously expect the public to form militias.

DEI

Once again, we remind readers that the norm throughout the world is to give privileged access to jobs and economic opportunities to the natives. Malaysia, India, South Africa, Japan, South Korea, China, practically all Middle Eastern countries, and many others, all have or had policies that favour domestic industry and/or domestic labour. In these countries, which represent the overwhelming majority of the world, it is accepted as self evident that responsibility of a government is not towards the world, but towards the native population.

Favouring foreign over domestic labour through DEI policies is an extremely novel idea. It also makes no electoral or political sense – most voters are natives. It only makes sense through the bizarre ideology of critical race theory.

DEI tells native British whites that they are second class citizens in the only home they have. It tells them that the establishment – the government, the media and big businesses – care more about foreigners than they do about them.

If a father regularly treated one child better than the other, this would breed deep-seated resentment.

Imagine if the father treated a stranger’s child better than his own.

Now imagine if it was the government doing it.

Would this not be described as a two-tiered system, with first and second class citizens? How should we, as analysts, expect the natives to react to such a system?

Failure of the political system

Many would be excused for believing that there is really no difference between Labour and the Conservatives. Labour is promising austerity and a bloated state. The Conservatives delivered austerity and an overbearing, bloated state.

Reform won more votes than the Liberal Democrats, but thanks to the first past the post electoral system, it only won four seats compared to the Liberal Democrats’ 72.

Keir Starmer’s mandate is extremely weak, and yet he is set to transform the UK through increased migration and accelerated woke policies.

We analysts take it as a given that it is normal for violence to emerge when the political system fails to meet the public’s expectations.

There are some who think that the West is an exception to human norms. They need to explain themselves slowly and clearly.

Demonisation

There is this bizarre notion going around the media – and Whitehall – that the only objection to mass migration comes from the far right. In this worldview, anyone who says different cultures are meaningfully different and may not be able to coexist is far right. Yet to anyone who has been outside university campuses, differences in cultures and values are self evident.

To many people, this makes the far right seem like the reasonable ones. Unjustified demonisation begets radicalisation.

The riots over the murder of the Southport girls were as “largely peaceful” as BLM riots, but you can be sure that the BBC did not see it that way.

Identity

Throughout the world, people prefer their family to their neighbours, their neighbours to those further away, and their countrymen to strangers.

This is a human norm set by evolution - all mammals are either solitary or familial/tribal; there are no mammals that display a strong preference for strangers. Doing so is anti-survival.

Murdering male strangers and taking their females is the norm in nature.

A map of the movements of several wolf packs. Each pack moves solely within its territory. Notice that migration is absolutely not permitted - killing trespassers is the norm.

It is reasonable to expect the public of any nation to resent large-scale migration, even if it were economically beneficial, and even if the state did not favour the strangers over the natives.

Imagine how much more people would resent migration that is not economically beneficial, and where the state seems to favour the non-natives.

The government’s bind

Political

The Labour Party’s Sir Keir Starmer won the elections with a lower portion of the votes than any prime minister in recent history, had a lower total number of total votes than the supposedly unelectable former Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn did in 2017 and 2019, had only 5% of potential voters saying they back his policies, and runs an all but bankrupt country. His mandate is very weak, but his ideological ambitions appear limitless.

From Sir Keir’s Twitter page, two days after dozens of police were injured by BLM rioters.

Economic

The British government’s debt is 101% of GDP, and it is borrowing annually another 6% of GDP, as of the end of 2023. The government reports a £20bn funding gap but will continue spending on foreign aid, hosting illegal migrants, raising government workers’ wages and green energy investments.

Politically, it is unclear why the government would continue with foreign aid and hosting illegal migrants. The government is unable to provide an explanation why this is in the public interest, given the debt, deficit and impact on social cohesion.

As for green investments, it is worth recalling how insignificant British carbon emissions are in a global context, and that green energy investments require replacing working energy infrastructure with subsidy consuming new and unreliable alternatives. That can make energy more expensive and harm businesses and employment.

Furthermore, the government is also set to raise taxes. However, if it does go after the highest earners, as Labour’s ideology requires it to do, there will be an increased risk that those rich enough to leave the UK would do so, and that businesses would seek lower tax jurisdictions.

The government is in a bind. Austerity does not produce growth, but the government’s ideology prevents it from pursuing pro-growth policies, and prevents it from stopping funding for migrants, international aid and green energy.

As such, Keir Starmer cannot offer the British public anything other than austerity while claiming that green energy will save the economy. How will he appease a weary public?

Ideological

Starmer’s reaction to the riots that followed the Southport stabbing was to hold a press conference where he attacked the rioters and protesters. Sir Keir promised to form a police unit against what he termed the far right – but not against illegal migration or knife crime, or riots by minority communities.

Starmer promised to keep the Muslim community safe but made no such promise to the native white majority. While condemning rioters and promising to prosecute them is wise and good, Starmer made no such condemnations or threats following Bangladeshi or Roma or Pakistani riots.

This furthers the impression that Starmer is not concerned with the grievances of the British white working class, especially given his stance on Black Lives Matter rioters, for whom he knelt.

Perhaps if the whites rioted enough, he would kneel for them too?

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Let us recap.

The British public have seen the political system fail to deliver on their concerns. They’ve endured a decade and a half of austerity and appear set to endure a decade more, coupled with growth-destroying energy policies.

Immigration is at record levels, preventing wages from rising, making housing more expensive and pressuring public services.

Some immigrant communities have dramatically failed to integrate. Rather than doing something about that, the state is bringing in ever greater numbers, making integration even more unlikely.

Diversity quotas - regardless of their immediate economic impact - create the impression that the state favours foreigners and newcomers rather than natives, as do “hate speech” laws that restrict many necessary debates.

And the policing system appears to be petty, ineffective and two-tiered.

If one were to ask, what has the British government delivered for its people in recent years, what would the response be?

If one were to ask, what can we expect the Starmer government to deliver to its people in the coming years, what would the response be?

The question that an analyst with some sympathy towards the subjects of his analysis should ask is not “why are they rioting?”.

The question we should ask is, “how is it that only so few are rioting?”.

Perhaps Sir Keir can be convinced to see the world through the rioters’ eyes, to understand their grievances as he understands the grievances of Gazans or Israelis, to correct his own errors and then, where necessary, to send the police to fight?