Why is it a particular type of, usually men, who are normally the instigators of civil unrest?

[coworkingdesk]

It can’t be that they’re all just disillusioned or angry or even just thick. It largely seems to be working class men (and yes some women). When I passed the Tommy Robinson March last week when I was in London, it was a very similar demographic although I must admit it looked mainly quite calm.

I feel angry for the families of those poor girls, it’s beyond dreadful what happened to them but the rioters must know that they’re not helping them at all (or themselves).

So is it just racism? I saw some of the videos on X last night of black men and Muslims being singled out and attacked and can’t really think it’s down to anything else. The footage was shocking.

They are all men with small penises, small testicles and even tinier brains.

Yeah that was what I was referring to earlier I didn't realise it had escalated so much. It was definitely a white Scottish man.

Any MNet members willing to admit their DH/DP, DS/DD or themselves have taken part in any of the social disorder or protests?

I agree with you completely.

I've just looked at police Scotland forth valley FB page the have turned the comments off there Is no comments h
Showing at all.

https://news.stv.tv/east-central/police-aware-of-online-speculation-over-stirling-stabbing-as-man-charged

To me integration isn’t ’living the British way’, it’s living alongside the ‘British way’ in a way that’s harmonious and has mutual respect. It doesn’t bother me one iota that anybody would want to build a mosque, or a Polish deli, or have a Diwali themed day at school (or whatever). I enjoy diversity, I don’t want to live in a homogenous British state where we do nothing but drink tea and walk around National Trusts.

My personal concerns around immigration and integration are that unfortunately a small minority really are not in harmony with British life, and we are basically completely forbidden from discussing it because anyone who does it called a racist.

There are a number of people who have lived here for 30+ years, never worked, claim benefits and don’t speak even conversational English. There are thousands of young men arriving on boats who have either deserted family to an unknown fate, or are economic migrants, who we are paying enormous sums of money to house. There are a minority of people who take serious issue with British life as it is at odds with their religious leanings, and in particular see young British girls as ‘easy’. There are a minority of people who think close relative marriage is fine and acceptable and this is tolerated and ignored leading to generations of disabled children. There’s a small minority who have extremism beliefs to the extent somebody who does something small or clumsy is berated, accosted by an angry mob and forced to go into hiding or degrade themselves in repentance.

We can’t pretend this isn’t an issue. I expect all injustices in this country, whether by Caucasian Brits or anyone else, to be righted and addressed and not shied away from because of ‘sensitivities’.

I fully condemn the mob. I would happily see them all locked away for years, because they’re nothing but vile yobbos enjoying the thrill of seeing property destroyed and police injured. But I’m in an uncomfortable position because while I am vehemently opposed to them, I can’t say our immigration situation is fine and British society is fine. I’ve been called ‘far right’ on here, my mother in law calls me a ‘loony lefty’ for refusing to say the rioters are patriots and condemning them. It’s a hard place to be tbh.

@Crikeyalmighty

The slough council memorandum spells it all out. It literally blow by blow simply explains why it's aksing for money in each area and why.

It doesn't matter how hard working or not the people are /were but it's there. Resources were pulled and stretched beyond breaking g point.

It also hit at the same time time as the credit crisis.

Many people lived in hmos too keep costs down/work then go home.
Some members of my family are ee and came over years before the restrictions were lifted. Child benefit and benefit fraud was rife remember the loop hole that a child never born here could get it? She said, what is "your government doing".

It hit many communities hard and when that many people come at once it causes immeasurable issues.

The ee I personally know from family and through work and the community work extremely hard, have excellent skills across what I've seen from science to all sorts and they are assets to us without a doubt!!

100% assets but Tony Blair allowing so many to come at once didn't help us and it certainly didn't help them.

Sen provision has never really existed because it is not taught in teacher training.
There are no stragety to assist dc who can't read via phonics. There are literacy interventions but it's sparodic and long winded.

They are literally cut out of society and othered from year 2 and 3 in primary school. They cannot access the education, and they start to feel different from very young ages. Unless they have a parent to help them, we are creating a two tier system from those tender ages... We urgently need education reform.

We need flexible reading schemes, we must get dc reading.

It would be good to see some predicted economic outcomes based on lower immigration. Then people could have an informed vote that the government could not overturn so easily by saying ‘too many old people’.

For example if immigration was tightened, some universities would disappear. Is that a bad thing?

Many of the 1) staff employed by the immigration industry, 2) staff employed by the lower tier universities, 3) would-be UK students, could instead be incentivised to work in the key sectors like Care, filling some of the gaps that today require immigrants.

I haven’t seen anyone run the numbers on this.

I suspect it’s all very short term thinking. A business needs X people cheap and quick, so they get the visas no questions asked so that quarter’s economic figures are not impacted.

For example if immigration was tightened, some universities would disappear. Is that a bad thing?

(I'm resisting the urge to say "not if it's Portsmouth Uni".)

The idea of laying it out there, quantified and presenting it back to the electorate as a "put up or shut up" exercise is interesting.

The problem is making the predictions. Economists seem to have limited abilities to predict specifics outside of strict economic models. Remember the projections for Poles moving to the UK?

If they took a DNA test they'd find out more than half of them were from ancestoral immigration, then they'd have to fight themselves! You can't teach stupid.

Migrants are being blamed for stuff that’s nothing to do with them.

14 years of the Tories cutting public services to the bone, chronic underinvestment, the cancellation of policies like SureStart that were specifically designed to benefit the most deprived areas and target the achievement gap (see link) … The list goes on. The ‘levelling up’ cash distributed to middle class, Conservative constituencies. The loss of EU funding to the poorest areas of the U.K. that the Leave campaign promised they would match - spoiler alert, they didn’t. All this against a backdrop of stagnant wages and on huge rises in the cost of living.

https://ifs.org.uk/news/sure-start-greatly-improved-disadvantaged-childrens-gcse-results

When people feel frustrated, dissatisfied with their lives, and powerless to change things they’re vunerable to populism that offers easy answers and a convenient scapegoat. That’s true in every country and every era.

There are always going to be a hardcore of racists who will join groups like the National Front, BNP, EDF or whatever they rebrand it as in the future. When the economy is strong and people are earning well, they’re 30 sad blokes hanging around waving flags. When times are hard and you get people like Farage who add a veneer of legitimacy to their hate, 30 becomes 300 and you get a riot.. Farage may be many things but he’s not an idiot. He knows that there was no conspiracy to withhold information about the killings in Southport. He chose to fan the flames on social media.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/aug/04/watchdog-should-investigate-farages-dangerous-comments-says-liverpool-mp

What we need is for the parties on all sides to stop looking for cheap votes
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/police-commissioner-criticised-suggesting-protests-111940483.html
and act like public servants. We need politicians to engage people not just pander to their worst instincts in order to get votes.

We don’t need the stuff we’ve seen in America coming over here - crazy conspiracy theories spread by social media, facts becoming optional and rabid partisanship.

Yeah.

I kind of miss football hooliganism in a way - at least they were mainly fighting each other, and it was more a hobby than a political movement directing ing harm at third parties .

I was thinking AI could perhaps be used to predict in this way and help us work out a sustainable population model, how many kids we should be having on average, what numbers of people we need in each skill set, and what minimum immigration is needed. However then I started worrying it would tell us to kill off all the old people! Sorry, slightly off topic!

A result of the class system??

Cos let's face it, our working class white boys have the least opportunities of anyone.

So they're pissed off and angry.

That's what Rupert and co aren't out trying to glass people in bars in Rotherham.

They're going back to their warm, expensive houses, after working at an interesting, easy job that they got because of their expensive, network-heavy education, and dealing with any anger issues they may have by going biking/ doing a hobby.

If they took a DNA test they'd find out more than half of them were from ancestoral immigration, then they'd have to fight themselves! You can't teach stupid

^

This is so short sighted it's shocking.

You think this is honestly because of genetics?

What about socialization? Early childhood education? Lack of opportunities? Racial/ class profiling??

Come on MN

Surestart link from prawncow above it's interesting

I live in a northern town that’s on its arse. Austerity, lack of investment, half the town full of boarded up shops, hundreds of applicants for essentially NMW jobs. Desperation, anger, frustration, jealousy. The signs of poverty are pretty obvious tbh.
^
I live somewhere similar - but I suspect the vast majority of MN has no experience of places like that.

^

Agreed. No experience of something but spouting their champagne socialist ideas. Folks who are not desperate, anger, frustrated. Because they had that silver, or at least bronze spoon, when younger.

MN talks a great game about including immigrants l, we are all so inclusive and understating, etc, but it's just because it's trendy. What about our disaffected working class white boys, who grow into angry men?? Oh yeah, just dismiss them as scum of the earth.

Right.

I think that PP just meant that she thought many of the rioters would have to oppose themselves on the basis of immigrant ancestry, if they did DNA tests. I don't think anything extra was implied.

I was thinking AI could perhaps be used to predict in this way and help us work out a sustainable population model, how many kids we should be having on average, what numbers of people we need in each skill set, and what minimum immigration is needed. However then I started worrying it would tell us to kill off all the old people! Sorry, slightly off topic!

It's an interesting thought. I understand your reasons for being wary of the AI tech, though.

There has to be some way in which policy making can moderate this downward spiral.

This all has a depressing inevitability about it ATM.

Im just sitting up awake reading all the coverage I've been swerving and trying to guesstimate how long the identification, arrests & charging of this weekend's miscreants is going to take. We could be in for a long prison-clogging summer.

MN talks a great game about including immigrants l, we are all so inclusive and understating, etc, but it's just because it's trendy. What about our disaffected working class white boys, who grow into angry men?? Oh yeah, just dismiss them as scum of the earth.

I do think a massive, depression-era-scale scheme of house building and public works (infrastructure to support the new housing, maybe green tech) could ease a lot of the tension, if only someone could make the the finance work. Housing availability and housing prices has to play into this.

This will sound flippant - and it's really not - but I'm also wondering how many people have been radicalised by a lack of dentistry. That's also epidemic now, and nothing like tooth pain, or some amateur extractions to make everything feel desperate.

It's a shame there's no money for a Blair style programme of public spending.

Not racist?!

Oh dear. You're not being factual here.

Hearsay and anecdotes are not fact.

@LiterallyonFire yes that is what I meant. Thank you. @coxesorangepippin, that's not what I meant. I've no idea why you came to that conclusion. Very strange.