Party rows over racism reveal not only poor vetting, but also the shocking bigotry in society unleashed by Brexit
It’s hard to avoid noticing that most of our political parties seem to be embroiled in rows over racism and prejudices. Two Conservative local election candidates were suspended over racist social media posts last week – and that’s after a steady drip of revelations over Islamophobic comments made by members and candidates alike. Labour suspended several local election candidates over antisemitic comments and is still accused of failing to tackle hundreds of complaints of antisemitism within the party. Now, new political parties are apparently keen to catch on. Few will have had the highest expectations of Nigel Farage’s latest vehicle, the Brexit party– or, indeed, of his old one, Ukip. But, for some, hopes were set higher with Change UK– where one candidate for the European election resigned after sexist and racist tweets he wrote were uncovered, while another did so just a day earlier, having made disparaging comments about Romanian people in 2017. Another of its candidates is accused of Islamophobia (though she has refuted this). This is the party that was accused of racism within hours of launching, in February, when one of its members referred to people from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds (BAME) as being of a “funny tinge”, although she apologised.
Predictably, all of this has fuelled the never-ending political game of “your party is more racist than my party”. This depressingly superficial approach feeds into a standard response pattern. Assuming parties get beyond kneejerk denialism (granted, a big assumption - since this has been at points the response from both main parties), candidates or members making prejudiced comments are ejected or deselected, and this process is itself held up as proof of taking racism seriously. Such a response, if done transparently and speedily, is welcome and promotes trust in a complaints process. But this approach does not get to why it keeps happening – and across our political parties – in the first place.
Bigoted sentiments may not be new, but they have been validated, mainlined and presented as reasonable
Related: Jeremy Corbyn is either blind to antisemitism – or he just doesn’t care | Jonathan Freedland
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