ELECTORAL POLITICS| GOVERNMENT POLICY
As anti-migrant, anti-equalities, anti-abortion, misogynistic and anti-LGBTQI rhetoric in electoral campaigning are increasingly interlinked, we reflect this in the coverage below which also includes information on the influence of the Christian Right as well as the religious Right generally.
2 September: The president of the Canary Islands accuses Spain‘s socialist government of abandoning its responsibilities, as arrivals from Africa increased in August by 126 per cent there and by 143 per cent in Ceuta, attributed to drought and famine in Mauritania and the Sahel. (Euractiv, 6 September 2024)
4 September: Following the far-right riots in Manvers, Rotherham council leader Chris Read writes to the government objecting to further use of the Holiday Inn Express to house asylum seekers. Manvers Residents Association also objects, citing ‘anxieties and fear’ caused by housing asylum seekers in a residential area. (Rotherham Advertiser, 4 September 2024)
4 September: The Alliance for Racial Justice coalition says that the government’s failure to appoint a full-time equalities minister reflects its lack of commitment to addressing institutional racism, adding that the Equality Act 2010 is no longer fit for purpose. (Independent, September 2024).
5 September: Analysis of the state elections in Thuringia, east Germany, shows that 38 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds voted for the far-right AfD, an increase of almost 20 per cent compared with 2019 state election results. (Guardian, 5 September 2024)
5 September: France’s new right-wing prime minister, Michel Barnier, vows to address the nation’s feelings of ‘anger…abandonment and injustice’, saying that the government is to prioritise education, security and immigration control. (Guardian, 5 September 2024)
5 September: Germany’s migration commissioner Joachim Stamp suggests that asylum seekers coming through Russia and Belarus should be sent to Rwanda, as chancellor Olaf Scholz vows to legislate to speed up deportations by December. (Deutsche Welle, 5 September 2024)
6 September: A representative of the Hungarian government tells the press that it won’t allow the EU to force ‘illegal migrants’ across its borders, offering them ‘one-way travel to Brussels’ instead. Both Belgium’s asylum and migration minister and the mayor of Brussels condemn the threat. (AP, 6 September 2024; Euractiv, 9 September 2024)
6 September: JHL, the largest Finnish welfare sector union, withdraws support for the government’s anti-racism campaign, ‘Action Not Words’, citing inconsistences between the state’s actions and campaign’s supposed goals. (YLE, 6 September 2024)
11 September: Following FOI requests, Lord Walney’s 2-page dossier to the home secretary alleging incidents of intimidation of politicians by pro-Palestinian protesters is released. Analysis concludes that the government’s adviser on political violence relied on selective, unreliable and unsubstantiated reports. (Middle East Eye, 11September 2024)
11 September: In France, the Paris Court of Appeal upholds a defamation case brought by the migrant rights group Cimade against National Rally politician Marine Le Pen who, during her 2022 presidential campaign, accused the organisation of being a channel for illegal immigration. (Libération, 11 September 2024)
11 September: A number of ‘race relations experts’, including Professor Ted Cantle, back a call from British Future, Belong and the Together Coalition demanding that Keir Starmer set out how the government will rebuild community cohesion at the Labour party conference. (Guardian, 11 September 2024)
12 September: The deputy prime minister announces a new £15m Community Recovery Fund administered by the Communities & Recovery Steering Group and aimed at supporting areas affected by the recent riots and empowering communities to address its deeper roots. (Northern Echo, 12 September 2024)
16 September: Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, calls on European countries to end social benefits for military-age Ukrainian men, saying they should not be rewarded for avoiding the draft. (Notes from Poland, 16 September 2024)
16 September: The head of the Muslim Council of Britain asks why, despite her appeals for contact during the summer riots, the government has not engaged with the group since being elected, as the first minister and police chiefs in Northern Ireland had done. (Guardian, 16 September 2024)
16 September: Keir Starmer, on a visit to Italy with the new border security commander, pledges £4m to support Giorgia Meloni’s crackdown on ‘irregular migration’ and says that learning from the Italians marks ‘a return to British pragmatism’, commending Meloni’s ‘upstream work that tackles the issue at its source’. (Guardian, 16 September 2024)
ANTI-FASCISM AND THE FAR RIGHT
With anti-migrant, anti-Muslim, anti-equalities, anti-abortion, misogynistic and anti-LGBTQI activities increasingly interlinking, we now incorporate information on the Christian Right as well as the religious Right generally.
5 September: In the Netherlands, three people, the youngest a 16-year-old boy, are arrested on suspicion of belonging to the far-right paramilitary group The Base, which was founded in the US. (DutchNews, 5 September 2024)
7 September: In Glasgow, thousands turn out for an anti-racist rally, outnumbering 200 anti-immigration protestors in George Square. The protest, organised by Glasgow Cabbie Facebook page and promoted by Tommy Robinson, was the first significant anti-immigrant rally in Scotland since riots began in elsewhere in the UK (Guardian, 7 September 2024)
16 September: A neo-Nazi based in Falkirk, Scotland is found guilty of charges under the Terrorism Act, racism, antisemitism, Holocaust denial and breach of the peace. The man, who referred to Norwegian neo-Nazi and mass murderer Anders Breivik as ‘Saint Anders’, was found to be in possession of weapons including a crossbow, samurai sword, ball bearings and 14 knives, some of which had Nazi and SS insignia. (BBCNews, 16 September 2024)
COUNTER-TERRORISM AND NATIONAL SECURITY
5 September: On the anniversary of the 1972 Munich Olympic terrorist attack, police shoot dead an 18-year-old Austrian man with ‘Balkan roots’ in a shoot-out near the Israeli Consulate and a Nazi-era museum. Police investigate the case as a possible terror attack, while Chancellor Scholz comments that ‘antisemitism and Islamism have no place’ in Germany. (Deutsche Welle, 5 September 2024; Deutsche Welle, 6 September 2024; Guardian, 5 September 2024)
POLICING| PRISONS| CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
3 September: The PSNI says that 45 people have been arrested and 36 individuals have appeared in court in relation to the far-right riots, charged with offences including incitement of disorder though online activity. (Belfast Media, 3 September 2024)
3 September: Conservatives Against Racism for Equality accuse the Met of spreading misinformation after they falsely suggested on X that the fatal stabbing of Mussie Imnetu took place at the Notting Hill Carnival. (Independent, 3 September 2024)
6 September: Thomas Birley, a 27-year-old man from Rotherham who added fuel to a bin fire during violent scenes outside the Holiday Inn Express in Manvers, receives a nine-year prison sentence for arson with intent to endanger life, the longest sentence so far in relation to the far-right riots. (Guardian, 6 September 2024)
6 September: Following public pressure, the Met drops a number of disruptive restrictions on the 18th national march for Palestine since last October, including a change to the advertised start time and location. (Morning Star, 6 September 2024)
6 September: In Italy, calls mount for a parliamentary commission of inquiry after an 18-year-old Egyptian prisoner dies in a fire, believed to have started as a cell protest, at Milan’s San Vittore jail, where 70 inmates and seven prison officers have taken their lives since the beginning of the year. (ANSA, 6 September 2024)
9 September: The Commons Library publishes ‘Policing responses to the Summer 2024 riots’, which describes the riots as ‘anti-immigration’ and notes that as of 30 August 2024, 1,280 people have been arrested, with 796 people charged to date and, as of 2 September, 570 people brought before the courts. (Commons Library, 9 September 2024)
10 September: A police inspectorate report finds that in relation to criticisms of police handling of pro-Palestinian protests, the Met has been subjected to improper political interference from senior politicians, referencing an attempt by the former home secretary Suella Braverman to ban a march planned for Armistice Day. (BBC News, 10 September 2024)
10 September: In Spain, a judge shelves a landmark investigation into a teenager’s torture by police during the Franco era. The anti-Franco victim, now 68, brought the case last year. (Guardian, 10 September 2024)
10 September: Black professor Kehinde Andrews is visited by West Midlands police after releasing a video in which he called former GB news commentator Calvin Robinson a ‘house n*gro’ and defended the use of the term as ‘vital expressions of Black political thought’ that should not be policed. (Independent, 10 September 2024)
11 September: A single mother who went on holiday while her 12-year-old son was in court on a riots-related violent disorder charge is fined £1,200 by a Manchester magistrate and ordered to take part in a six-month parenting course. Her mixed-race son, who has ADHD and was described as exhibiting ‘feral behaviour’, was given a 12-month referral order. (Lancs Live, 11 September 2024)
11 September: Anti-knife crime campaigner Faron Paul is paid £9,000 in damages by Met police in relation to a cavity search by six police officers at Charing Cross police station in October 2021. (Independent, 11 September 2021)
12 September: In a joint report that finds overwhelming public support for the ‘right to protest’, Demos and Liberty call for an independent review of protest legislation and the policing of protest. (Express & Star, 12 September 2024)
13 September: At the Old Bailey, Cardiff Black Lives Matter activist Kwabena Devonish is charged with expressing an opinion or belief supportive of a proscribed organisation in connection with a speech she gave at a Palestine solidarity rally in November 2023. (Morning Star, 13 September 2024)
ASYLUM | MIGRATION| BORDERS| CITIZENSHIP
Asylum and migrant rights
6 September: According to the parliamentary and health service ombudsman, the Windrush compensation scheme, set up in 2019 to compensate those affected by the Windrush scandal, is causing ‘further harm and injustice’ by wrongly denying compensation. (Guardian, 6 September 2024)
9 September: A 10-year-old boy who was evacuated with an aunt and uncle to the UK in Operation Pitting during the fall of Kabul in 2021 remains separated from his family, who are in hiding in Afghanistan, as the Home Office rejects a family reunion application on the grounds that the child is not a valid sponsor. (Guardian, 9 September 2024)
9 September: Qaher Hazrat, a top Paralympian athlete from Afghanistan now seeking asylum in the UK, is refused help from the NHS to replace his broken prosthetic legs because he is an asylum seeker. (Guardian, 9 September 2024)
9 September: Big Issue reveals that an asylum seeker has waited 16 years for a decision on his claim, while 19 others have waited ten years or more. (Big Issue, 9 September 2024)
11 September: A report from the Local Government Association highlights that an increase in homelessness is linked to the abrupt removal of support and accommodation from newly granted refugees and calls on the government to increase the move-on period to 56 days. (EIN, 11 September 2024)
12 September: The children’s commissioner, Rachel De Souza, warns that from January 2023 to July 2024, 1,541 child trafficking victims as well as 1,714 adult victims were re-referred to the national referral mechanism, with children in local authority care at greater risk of further exploitation. (Guardian, 12 September 2024)
16 September: As the prime minister visits Italy, the International Rescue Commission, the Refugee Council, Amnesty International and JCWI criticise Starmer for his praise of Italy’s far-right prime minister’s policies on ‘irregular migration’, and urge him to concentrate instead on creating safe routes. (Guardian, 16 September 2024)
Borders and internal controls
4 September: Human Rights Watch claims that EU funding for border controls has been used by authorities in Cyprus and Lebanon to violate refugees’ human rights, with Syrian refugees pushed back from Cyprus to Lebanon and then deported from there. (AP News, 4 September 2024)
6 September: Following a high level summit on tackling Channel crossings at the National Crime Agency headquarters with cabinet ministers, law enforcement agencies, representatives from the Border Force and intelligence officers, the prime minister promises ‘to take these gangs down’ using the swift ‘justice’ tactics deployed against recent rioters. (Guardian, 6 September 2024)
6 September: Search-and-rescue NGO SeaWatch accuses the Italian authorities of fatal delay in assisting a migrant boat that sank on 4 September off Lampedusa, drowning 21 of the 28 passengers. (InfoMigrants, 6 September 2024)
7 September: Axel Gaudinat, a co-ordinator with Utopia 56 in Calais, France, explains that government policy to ‘stop the gangs’ by clamping down on the supply of boats is resulting in more people being packed onto overcrowded flimsy vessels. The average number of people per boat has risen from 40 last year to 60-70 this year, increasing the risk of death by crushing or drowning. (National, 7 September 2024)
15 September: The former chair of the National Police Chief’s Council, Martin Hewitt, is appointed to head the new Border Security Command. (Guardian, 16 September 2024; EIN, 16 September 2024)
16 September: President of the International Rescue Committee and former Labour foreign secretary David Miliband says that the government should offer safe routes to refugees, as Starmer shows great interest in the far-right Italian government’s offshoring deal with Albania. (Guardian, 16 September 2024)
16 September: Far-right leaders in Hungary, Netherlands, Italy and France react with jubilation as Germany reintroduces temporary checks at all nine of its land borders, with the interior minister saying the checks are necessary to combat irregular migration and ‘protect against…Islamist terrorism and serious crime’. (Guardian, 16 September 2024)
17 September: The home secretary announces funding of £75 million to deliver ‘state-of-the-art technologies and enhanced intelligence’ to improve the capabilities of the Border Security Command. (Standard, 17 September 2024)
Reception and detention
5 September: Tory plans to use RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire as asylum accommodation have been abandoned by the Labour government. (Guardian, 5 September 2024)
9 September: In Germany, Berlin’s State Office for Refugee Affairs plans to convert an office complex in affluent Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf into accommodation for 1,500 asylum seekers to cope with the dire shortage of asylum accommodation. (Deutsche Welle, 9 September 2024)
12 September: From November, asylum seekers on the Bibby Stockholm will be moved off the barge and dispersed across the country to receive their asylum decision, but will not be moved to Portland, Weymouth, or the wider Dorset Council area. (BBC News, 12 September 2024)
14 September: FOI-requested documents on Operation Vector (the rounding up of migrants for the Rwanda scheme) obtained by the Observer and Liberty Investigates, record 60 instances of force used by enforcement officers against detainees, including migrants being locked up after the postponement of the policy. (Guardian, 14 September 2024)
Deportations
2 September: Statewatch reveals EU plans for accelerated deportations of asylum seekers under the Pact on Migration and Asylum. (Statewatch, 2 September 2024)
The @EU_Commission plans to increase #detentions and speed up #deportations. 🧵
As part of the #MigrationPact, the Commission is planning for the new asylum border procedure. Through this, more applicants can be immediately detained, and their applications quickly refused. pic.twitter.com/k4jtfsZBsO
— Statewatch (@StatewatchEU) September 4, 2024
4 September: To expedite the deportation of ‘small boat’ migrants, the government is to spend £15 million on partnerships with eleven countries including Albania, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Iraq, Jamaica, Nigeria, Pakistan, Vietnam and Zimbabwe, despite many having a record of human rights violations. (Independent, 4 September 2024)
EDUCATION
Although we do not cover student protests for Palestine, we do track university administrative measures that deny the right to protest and authorise the use of force, or silence pro-Palestinian voices and display anti-Palestinian bias.
4 September: OCR’s review of GCSE English critiques the use of ‘texts which are neither contemporary nor a reflection of the diverse backgrounds and cultures of our school population’ and recommends adopting the Runnymede Trust’s ‘Visualise’ initiative to improve the representation of Black, Asian and ethnically diverse artists in teaching and assessment. (OCR, 4 September 2024)
4 September: A Sutton Trust report finds that ‘many comprehensive schools admit far lower proportions of disadvantaged pupils than live in their catchment area’. The worst-affected areas had attainment gaps 27 per cent higher than in areas with low segregation, while the most segregated areas were ‘more likely to be in urban locations, with lower levels of ethnic diversity, and high numbers of faith schools.’ (Sutton Trust, 4 September 2024)
5 September: Research by the IPPR finds that suspensions and exclusions from English schools rose by more than a fifth in the past year, with children being were moved into ‘alternative provision’ where quality and safety is less guaranteed. ‘Lost learning’ disproportionately affects children who live in poverty, are in contact with social services, have special educational needs, face mental health challenges or experience racism. (IPPR, 5 September 2024; Guardian, 5 September 2024)
10 September: The latest government data on Key Stage 2 pupil attainment shows that while the disadvantage gap has reduced slightly from last year, it still remains wider than pre-pandemic levels. GRT pupils are the lowest performing group, while a significantly lower-than-average percentage of pupils of Caribbean heritage reach the expected standards in reading, writing and maths. (TES, 10 September 2024)
12 September: 16 universities launch The Global University Academy to develop a framework to meet the ‘need for improved higher education programs and support services for refugees’ and ‘to help support the UNHCR’s goal of increasing refugee access to higher education to 15% by 2030’. (GUA, 12 September)
15 September: Following far-right violence in the summer, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for race and inclusion says that officers are engaging with senior staff and security teams at universities, ‘offering advice and guidance to ensure that vulnerable premises are safeguarded, and that students know where to go for help and support’. (THE, 15 September 2024)
HOUSING| POVERTY| WELFARE
4 September: Police face pressure to accelerate the criminal investigation into the Grenfell Tower fire, in which 72 died in 2017, after the public inquiry report exposes decades of failure by central government and egregious behaviour by firms involved in the Tower’s refurbishment. (Guardian, 4 September 2024)
4 September: Keir Starmer apologises in the Commons for state failures over Grenfell and says that companies condemned by the inquiry will no longer be considered for public contracts. (Guardian, 4 September 2024)
7 September: Rydon property group, the lead contractor that oversaw the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower from 2014 to 2016, including the use of combustible cladding, is revealed to have won deals from local councils and the NHS since the 2017 fire, despite interventions by mayor of London Sadiq Khan and housing secretary Robert Jenrick. (Guardian, 7 September 2024)
7 September: International students in Cork, Ireland, say that they fear for their safety after two UCC students report that a group of teenagers abused them, told them to go back to their own country, and threw ropes around their necks. (RTE, 7 September 2024)
EMPLOYMENT| EXPLOITATION| INDUSTRIAL ACTION
8 September: According to the Worker Support Centre, the number of migrant seasonal workers seeking help after being sacked by farms for not meeting picking targets has doubled. (Guardian, 8 September 2024)
11 September: An employment tribunal hears a claim for worker status brought on behalf of over 12,500 drivers for rideshare platform Bolt, which treats drivers as self-employed, denying rights such as minimum wage, holiday and sick pay. (Guardian, 11 September 2024)
16 September: Figures published by the Department for Work and Pensions show that Black and minority ethnic benefit claimants are disproportionately likely to face universal credit sanctions, with Black claimants 58 per cent, mixed ethnic groups 72 per cent and Asians 5 per cent more likely to be sanctioned than white claimants. (Guardian, 16 September 2024)
CULTURE| MEDIA| SPORT
While we cannot cover all incidents of racist abuse on sportspersons or their responses, we provide a summary of the most important incidents. For more information follow Kick it Out.
2 September: Research into the impact of social media on far-right success in the European elections finds that TikTok and Instagram adjusted their video feeds to the political interests of the far Right, regularly pitching videos with Islamophobic and anti-immigration messages, including a drawing representing Muslims as pigs. (blogs. LSE, 2 September 2024)
5 September: The Good Law Project finds that the Street Foundation charity, set up to help young people with disabilities and special needs, has given right-wing pressure groups and think-tanks £749,000 in the last five years, over 40 per cent of the money it has handed out during the period. The New Culture Forum, which opposes the Equality Act and claims that mass immigration is ’an existential threat to Britain’, is among its beneficiaries. (Good Law Project, 5 September 24)
6 September: The launch of a humanitarian appeal by the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) is being delayed by the BBC over concerns that the call did not meet the criteria for a nationally broadcast appeal. However, insiders at the DEC and BBC have expressed dismay at the delay, with some accusing the BBC of holding back over concerns of backlash from supporters of Israel. (Guardian, 6 September 2024)
9 September: Researchers at Sheffield University find that between 1 May and 30 July, Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer, Diane Abbott, Suella Braverman and Sadiq Khan were collectively sent 85,000 clearly abusive messages on X, many of them including racist slurs. (Guardian, 9 September 2024)
12 September: In Germany, Diaspora Alliance warns that 25 per cent of cases of censorship or deplatforming by cultural institutions related to claims of antisemitism were directed at Jewish individuals or groups. (Deutsche Welle, 12 September 2024)
16 September: Analysis by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue finds that AfD campaign material was most commonly found on X and Facebook in the build-up to state elections in Saxony and Thuringia, Germany. According to this analysis, these platforms, despite stricter EU regulation, failed to properly check the evolving language of the far Right, like the AfD’s use of the term ‘remigration’. (ISD, 16 September 2024)
RACIAL VIOLENCE AND HARASSMENT
For details of court judgements on racially motivated and other hate crimes, see also POLICING | PRISONS | CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM.
3 September: A 14-year-old boy is held on suspicion of murdering 80-year-old Bhim Kohli, attacked while walking his dog in Braunstone Town. An incident of verbal abuse by a gang of youths on Mr Kohli had been reported to police in July. (Guardian, 3 September 2024)
4 September: Following the death of Nigerian care worker Anu Okusanya, who suffered a heart attack after fleeing the scene of an assault in Newry, County Down, Stormont’s justice minister Naomi Long says that ethnic minorities in Northern Ireland are living in terror. (BBC, 4 September 2024)
5 September: In Greece, an enraged mayor of Tilos posts a video on social media of a Greek tourist abusing her and the port authorities as they tried to help refugees disembark, shouting ‘throw refugees into the sea’, alongside other racist comments. (Keep Talking Greece, 5 September 2024)
This calendar is researched by IRR staff and compiled by Sophie Chauhan, with the assistance of Graeme Atkinson, Sam Berkson, Margaret McAdam and Louis Ordish. Thanks also to ECRE, the Never Again Association and Stopwatch, whose regular updates on asylum, migration, far Right, racial violence, employment and policing issues are an invaluable source of information. Find these stories and all others since 2014 on our searchable database, the Register of Racism and Resistance.