The government has failed to address the threat of the far right in the UK while tacitly endorsing the violence asylum seekers are facing, according to an open letter written by prominent charities and equalities organisations.
The open letter, addressed to the prime minister, home secretary and other cabinet and shadow cabinet ministers, and signed by groups including the Community Policy Forum, Refugee Council, and the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, claims that the government has continually failed to “adequately address the dangers posed by Islamophobia and racism against vulnerable people seeking protection and racialised communities in the UK”.
The letter added: “With government ministers continuing to promote incendiary language labelling asylum seekers with harmful stereotypes and painting them as unworthy of sanctuary, there must be accountability for their role in normalising and tacitly endorsing the threats that asylum seekers now face.
“As such, the government must immediately disown such language and pledge to tackle far-right rhetoric inciting hatred against minority groups.”
The open letter comes after the long-awaited report on the government’s counter-extremism programme Prevent by William Shawcross published its controversial conclusion that the programme had focused disproportionately on the far right and not enough on Islamist extremism.
The letter argues that the report made use of “incomplete and skewed evidence to minimise the threat of the far right,” and called on the government to reject the recommendations of the Shawcross review.
The letter also referenced the far-right demonstrators who gathered in Knowsley to protest against asylum seekers who had been housed in a local hotel by the Home Office. “The response to the violence and intimidation directed at refugees in Knowsley has highlighted the normalised far-right hatred in the UK,” it reads.
The organisations urged the government to “outline a robust strategy to tackle far-right ideologies” and to “distance themselves from the statements of government ministers normalising and mainstreaming far-right hatred against minority groups”. In November, the home secretary Suella Braverman was criticised for referring to asylum seekers coming to the UK as an “invasion”.
Fizza Qureshi, the chief executive of the Migrants’ Rights Network and one of the letter’s signatories, said: “The lack of acknowledgment about the role Islamophobia and racism played in the Knowsley riot is shocking but unfortunately unsurprising. At the Migrants’ Rights Network, we have been warning about the devastating impact hostile rhetoric and ideas can have on refugees and migrants for some time, and how it has emboldened the far right.
“Once again racism, orientalism and Islamophobia have been omitted from discussions on the far-right attack. Far-right extremism and hate crimes towards people of colour and Muslims have been widespread for a number of years. So, we must publicly acknowledge the prejudice that drives attacks like these, and prevent them from happening again.”
Isobel Ingham-Barrow, chief executive of Community Policy Forum, said that accepting the recommendations of the Shawcross review would only increase the challenges posed by the far right.
She added: “Instead, the government must urgently develop a strategy to combat the far right and pledge to protect human rights, rather than attempting to eradicate them when they are inconvenient.”
The Cabinet Office has been approached for comment.
