Every general election the topics of Hate Crimes, discrimination and racism appear; this year Hate Incidents have appeared within the political parties themselves. Both leading parties seem to have issues revolving around Hate and Discrimination.
How can Hate Crime be reduced when the leaders of the country have issues with discrimination in their own parties? Has this given permission for people to be more racist? Hate crime has more than doubled since 2013 (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/oct/15/hate-crimes-double-england-wales)
One party has members that claims Muslims have a ‘nasty culture’ and always play the ‘race card’ (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/09/tory-candidate-linden-kemkaran-shared-tweet-claiming-muslims-play-race-card). This way of thinking and blatant discrimination is embodied by their leader too. There are many instances of the leader stating their opinion on Islam and Muslims; going as far as stating that Islam is the problem and that women in niqabs look like letterboxes and bank robbers.(https://inews.co.uk/opinion/general-election-results-2019-boris-johnson-conservative-majority-muslim-woman-1340462).This leader’s remarks and actions have been seen to ‘encourage’ racism within football as the UEFA president remarked (https://edition.cnn.com/2019/12/03/football/boris-johnson-ceferin-racism-football-spt-intl/index.html)
Another party appears to have issues within itself when it comes to Anti-Semitism; Anti-Semitism being the specific name to hatred towards people of the Jewish faith. There has been sworn statements from party members about the anti-Semitic abuse they suffer within the party; including being called Zio scum, child killer and being told Hitler was right. (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/05/seventy-labour-staffers-give-statements-to-antisemitism-inquiry). There have been around 673 reports made within 10 months on this (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-43893791).
The issues within the parties has not been unnoticed by the public, especially when some members of the leading party have shown their contempt for Muslims. It is no wonder that the rate of Hate Crimes, especially on Muslim and Jewish victims, has increased the past 5 years since the Muslim hating party has been in power. The statistics show that there has been a significant increase in both Jewish and Muslim hate crimes. 47% of religious Hate Crime were against Muslims while Jewish Hate Crimes were doubled to 18%. Hate crimes have increased in all aspects, doubling in five years. (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/oct/15/hate-crimes-double-england-wales)
Islamophobic incidents were reportedly risen by 375% after the ‘letterbox’ remark (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/boris-johnson-muslim-women-letterboxes-burqa-islamphobia-rise-a9088476.html ).With the Jewish community being a target four times a day within 2017 (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/feb/01/antisemitic-incidents-in-uk-at-all-time-high ).
The increase in Hate Crimes has been reported in many areas. Just recently antisemitic incident happened in London (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/antisemitic-hate-crimes-london-bus-attack-jewish-man-stamford-hill-a9246301.html). Also there was a hate incident in Sheffield supposedly due to the fact of the election outcome, (https://www.thestar.co.uk/news/politics/hate-crime-culprits-sheffield-suburb-emboldened-boris-johnson-1341719). If this is how people are treated in public it is no wonder there is an issue with university students and Hate crime and Harassment.
By Ryan Minion, Serish Khan and Zalmea Naseem.
