Another story to tell
Six months on from the racist riots, the Runnymede Trust’s CEO, Shabna Begum, travelled to Liverpool to learn about the ongoing impact of the violence on communities of colour. The message from the grassroots activists she met was loud and clear: we need solidarity and support, rather than scapegoating and austerity.
On my recent trip to Toxteth, Liverpool I learned that the term ‘scouser’, used to describe a distinctive, local Liverpudlian identity, is actually based on an imported food item – scouse, a working-class Scandinavian stew popular among sailors and dating back to the 1700s.
Liverpool’s links to slavery, empire and the migration patterns that have shaped the city are, of course, close to the surface. Yet so much of what we associate with local, so-called ‘nativist’ identities are still ignorant of these wider geographic and historical connections.
When the racist riots erupted in Southport – part of the Liverpool city region – last summer, rioters chanted ‘we want our country back’. In doing so, they invoked a powerful, exclusionary identity, erasing the area’s historic global connections and communities of colour.
Other slogans such as ‘stop the boats’, chanted by rioters as they burned hotels, attacked mosques and assaulted people of colour, found their lyrical inspiration in the general election campaign. At the same time, the mainstream media, predictably, played a supportive soundtrack, describing the rioters as ‘protestors’ with ‘legitimate grievances’ and furiously debating the myth of ‘two-tier’ policing.
‘The wounds of the riots remain raw’
During my visit, over cups of karak chai and ‘English’ breakfast tea, my conversations with organisers, race equality and faith leaders in Toxteth revealed that the wounds of the riots remain raw, the fear and anger settling into the rhythm of everyday life. The sense that the response to the riots thus far had been far from adequate, was also clear.
In the post-riot policy conversation, we have seen the emergence of a consensus promoting the language of ‘social’ or ‘community cohesion’ – the equivalent of prescribing cheap, nutrient-poor, fast-food interventions for communities long starved of nourishment. For example, a detailed Liverpool Echo investigation found last year that austerity policies since 2010 have resulted in Liverpool City Council losing nearly £500m in core spending power.
The political and economic vandalism inflicted in these 14 years has driven scandalous increases in child poverty to the extent that nearly one in three children now live in relative poverty. More than half of those children are in families with a working adult, tracking through to the now familiar pattern of poverty that is as much to do with low income and insecure jobs as it is with the broken welfare state.
Compare that loss of funding to the government’s £15 million Community Recovery Fund, which prioritised grants for those areas most impacted by the riots. Liverpool City Council received £600,000 of that money – a drop in the ocean compared to the gargantuan economic losses that have accumulated over the years.
If the funding is inadequate maybe it can be redeemed by the values and principles it aspires to promote. Yet even here, the people I spoke to described the sense of intellectual dishonesty that is attached to the rollout. Last summer’s riots were racist – they primarily targeted Muslims, people seeking asylum and people of colour. But the recovery fund fails to mention racism, instead relying on the depoliticised language of ‘public disorder’.
Speaking with a local community worker, it was clear that after the spike in hate crimes reported last summer, there has been an ongoing and sustained increase that continues to this day. New figures reported last month show there was a 73 per cent increase in hate crimes against Muslims in 2024, with the trajectories in Liverpool aligning with what is an emerging national crisis.
‘The adrenaline response pumping through community activities’
On a walking tour through Toxteth with a grassroots activist, it was clear there was still something of the adrenaline response pumping through community activities. During the riots and for weeks afterwards, people of colour were forced to retreat into their homes, relying on white friends and neighbours to retrieve groceries as their neighbourhood had, overnight, transformed into a battleground in which they were the enemy. I was shown several buildings and walls that had been secured for murals – almost as if the experience of enforced hiding now required a visual balm, a reclamation of the neighbourhood from which they had been expelled during the days of violence.
For those on the ground, supporting communities, there is no need for commissions, inquiries or further research into the roots of the riots. The route to the riots was clear and derived in the classic coordination of economic deprivation accompanied by racist scapegoating as its cover. Tawhid Islam, a member of the city council’s Race Equality Hub and leader of the Liverpool Muslim Council, which organised my trip, described his dismay at the acceleration of Islamophobia in recent years.
Tawhid reflected on his shifting experiences of racism and his fears that things were likely to get worse for his young children. In the past, he explained, you might have an issue - a racist encounter, for example – and there would be a ‘dust off’ and then everyone would move on. Now, he continued, the racism felt like it was both everywhere and nowhere; mainstreamed and normalised but also denied and dismissed. This made it much harder to confront and challenge.
‘There was clear frustration that focusing on ‘cohesion’ created the impression that the riots erupted naturally’
Along with others I met, Tawhid was tired of the recycled community cohesion agenda, which was interpreted as a form of community gaslighting. There was clear frustration that focusing on ‘cohesion’ created the impression the riots erupted naturally from dysfunctional and divided communities, while obscuring the deeply instrumental impacts of austerity and racist scapegoating engineered by political and media elites, which had fostered the conditions for the terrible violence.
Speaking to people working within and alongside third-sector services in Liverpool, there was a clear sense that even if there were more generous funding for their work, their role was complementary and supportive. What was fundamental was the restoration of funding to statutory services and long-term investment in community infrastructure, alongside a clear and courageous anti-racist vision and commitment.
There was a call from the grassroots for the Labour government to reorient its direction of travel and stop throwing Muslims, migrants and people seeking asylum under the bus while chasing Reform votes. This, they warned, would yield little long-term political return when there are abundant options for the ‘authentic’ far right.
Despite the damage caused by austerity and the riots, It was clear that Toxteth communities are remarkably connected in complex and convivial ways, animated by forms of togetherness that are based on living, working and struggling together. The government can, and should, do things differently: there is another story to tell, one in which the delicate mosaic of our communities is celebrated as a strength and where austerity is abandoned in favour of an ambitious programme of wealth and power redistribution. It is a hopeful story that can bring communities and the country together.
This may seem wildly utopian, but for those of us trapped in the dystopian reality of racist scapegoating and the burdens of increasing economic hardship, building solidarity and support for that shift, at both local and national levels, is what keeps us going.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the Runnymede Trust.
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Photo © Tawhid Islam
