My Two Shekels: Should we be concerned about a rise in post EU referendum hate?
This week, Tasha Kleeman reflects on the increase in racist and xenophobic crimes after the UK's decision to leave the EU
It’s probably an understatement to say Brexit has changed everything. The result of the EU referendum set in motion a succession of turbulent events that are almost impossible to keep up with.
The economic uncertainty started almost the second it became clear the Leave campaign would be victorious.
Economists are now warning of years of strife to come, as the pound plummets and living costs increase.
The governments of Scotland and Northern Ireland have vocalised plans for independence, while our major political parties are divided and disordered, leaving Britain’s future seeming bleak and uncertain.
However, against this backdrop of political and economic uncertainty, a far more frightening reality is emerging.
Since the triumph of the Leave campaign, more than 300 racist incidents have been reported to police across the UK.
Far more are unofficially discussed on social media, as Twitter and Facebook feeds are inundated with personal experiences of post-Brexit brutality.
The vandalised Polish cultural centre, the ‘start reparation’ signs, dog excrement thrown at doors, people told they are ‘f***ing foreingers’ and to ‘go back home’.
It’s all reflective of an insurgence of racial hatred not seen for many years.
Like many, I am terrified.
While it is tempting to blame Brexit for this drastic increase in racist incidents, we must not confuse a catalyst for a cause.
The referendum has uncovered a level of racism that has never been far from the surface, and we must be mindful of the tendency to use Brexit as a front for explaining or legitimising what is simply mindless
intolerance.
Some of those who supported the Leave campaign were fuelled by an irrational hostility towards immigrants, which continues to find its expression in racist violence, and whose sentiments far precede the campaign itself.
While in turbulent times it is difficult not to be consumed by the present, we must look on events with the retrospective lens of history.
If the Holocaust taught us anything, it is that no one is immune to evil, and that where there is unrest and hardship, there is prejudice.
This is something we Jews know all too well, and we must not stand by while racial intolerance and hatred threatens the minorities of a country we call home.
• Tasha is a member of The Liberal Jewish Synagogue
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