A tale of three countries
ON a clear day it is possible to see across the English Channel, from one world to another.
At its narrowest point, it is just 32km from Dover to a headland on the French coast between Calais and Boulogne. You could walk it in just over six hours. On one side of La Manche is an island of nations with a proud seafaring history that has chosen to no longer be part of Europe. On the other is the edge of Europe and a continental land mass that extends into Asia and reaches Singapore at its farthest point.
Over here they drive on the lefthand side of the road; over there, the right. There are vast historical, cultural, religious and language divisions between England and France, but at night you can see the lights on the beach promenades over on the other side. One thing the two contrary nations share is a concern over both the number of illegal immigrants entering their borders and the human traffickers whose nefarious activities have led to misery and death for many hundreds of people over the years.
The English Channel has often been the conduit for sometimes illfated dashes for freedom from mainland Europe.
The International Organisation for Migration estimates that, in the past six years, at least 177 migrants died crossing the Channel to the shores of the United Kingdom.
By its very nature it is difficult to know with certainty how many illegal immigrants there are in the UK.
However, it is believed there may now be between 800,000 and 1.2 million undocumented migrants living there, more than half from Asia and about 20% from subSaharan Africa.
It is worth looking at the demographics of the UK’s population of 67 million. About 17%, or 11.4 million, belong to either a black, Asian, mixed or other ethnic group.
In the 2021 census, about 4 million people identified as Muslim, about 6.5% of the total population. That has increased from 2.7 million in 2011.
London and cities in the West Midlands and West Yorkshire have the largest percentages of Muslim residents.
There can be no doubt the UK is now a highly ethnically diverse nation. This is of no consequence to most of the younger generations who have grown up and gone to school there, who probably did not even notice differences in the classroom.
However, there is an ugly side to the British.
Among some, that fierce independence and bulldog spirit which has pervaded its history has become perverted into farright racism, a desire for the country to turn the clock back 70 years or more to when most people there were white.
Fascist or neofascist movements like the National Front have been around for decades, but there has been a rise in lessorganised, socialmedia incited, moronic thuggish mentality in recent years, fuelled by urban poverty and unemployment and also by Nigel Farage’s antiimmigration Reform UK party. Riots have broken out in cities and towns across England and Northern Ireland, sparked by a truly horrific multiple stabbing in Southport last week, in which three young girls at a Taylor Swiftinspired dance class were killed and 10 others, children and adults, received injuries, some critical.
False rumours soon spread on social media that the perpetrator was a Muslim asylumseeker who had arrived by boat.
That was enough for angry rightleaning crowds with their Islamophobic and antiimmigration rhetoric to start the violence.
These are the first major riots in the UK since 2011. The new Labour government is cracking down on the affray, with close to 400 people arrested in the past week.
These are testing days for Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who need to quickly restore order and put the feral right in its place. So, on one side of the Channel we have extremist violence while on the other the Paris Olympics brings together people of all races, with heartwarming moments of international unity which remind us of the best that humankind is capable of.
At this moment, it is a terrible look for England and Northern Ireland. It is a great look for France — but that nation, which suffered serious race riots last year, certainly has its own issues to deal with.
With apologies to Charles Dickens, it really is a tale of three countries.