Far right lies about crime feed the hostility towards migrants and refugees (Photo: Guy Smallman
Most people think crime is going up, but it’s been falling for decades.
And many overestimate how many foreign nationals commit crime, a new report has revealed.
Far right parties and their cheerleaders in the media constantly link offending to ethnicity and nationality in order to whip up racism. New research from King’s College London has shown how damaging their lies are.
Right wing politicians and the media have long preyed on people’s fears of being victims of violence. And they whip up racist ideas about who commits crime with stories of anti-social behaviour and of inner cities riddled with drugs and knife crime.
Those questioned think around a third of the population personally experience crime each year. The real figure is less than 10 percent.
People thought most convicted of homicide are from an ethnic minority. In fact, 64 percent of those convicted are white.
Racist smear campaigns mean that those surveyed thought foreign nationals made up 25 percent of the prison population, when the real figure is 12 percent.
And far right scapegoating of migrants means that those surveyed thought 30 percent of people cautioned for or convicted of sexual offences were foreign nationals—the real figure is 15 percent.
Not surprisingly, Reform UK supporters are consistently further from the truth than others surveyed.
Reform UK supporters think the number of foreign nationals cautioned for or convicted of sexual offences is 50 percent—more than three times the real figure of 15 percent.
And far right lies about “two-tier justice” are also having an impact. Just over 50 percent of the public think ethnic or religious minorities are sentenced differently for crimes. Around a third think they are treated more leniently than white people—although nearly as many correctly think they are treated more harshly.
These lies matter. The far right drips racist poison about crime. And mainstream politicians are only too keen to echo this racism if they think it will win votes.
Their lies about crime feed the hostility towards migrants and refugees and they strengthen demands for deportations, harsher sentences and the criminalisation of communities.
Crime is falling. Migrants are not responsible for sexual violence. It is the far right who pose a threat to our safety—and we must reject their lies.
Jason Arday was hounded to death by a racist witch‑hunt led by the right wing press and instigated by eugenicist Nathan Cofnas.
Even left wing outlets like Novara Media and the Guardian newspaper shamefully jumped on the hate campaign. “This is a conman,” wrote Novara’s co-founder Aaron Bastani.
Even after he resigned from his post at the University of Cambridge, the rabid British press continued to hound Jason.
On Monday evening, some 30,000 people gathered in London’s Trafalgar Square to remember Jason and support his family.
MP Diane Abbott told the crowds that the far right was out for Jason from day one.
“What you have to remember is that this wasn’t a matter of a few weeks,” she said.
“He was first appointed as a professor in Cambridge three years ago. And for those three years he has had a vicious campaign from people who just didn’t believe that a black man should be a Cambridge professor.
“But it wasn’t just a campaign against one professor, it was a campaign against all of us,” she added.
The problem is not confined to one university. There are people in positions of power throughout society who think the same things about all black people.
Now is the time to mourn Jason. But there will also be a time to act and to say we are going to stand up to the racist right.
We cannot forget how eagerly the press spread far right lies and we cannot forgive them.
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