I met Tommy Robinson as soon as. It was 10 years in the past precisely, throughout one among his many failed makes an attempt to mainstream Islamophobia in British politics with a brand new “motion” referred to as Pegida – a copycat of Germany’s far-right Patriotic Europeans In opposition to the Islamisation of the West.
There was little memorable about this “launch”, which as a social affairs editor for Sky Information I used to be despatched to cowl, solely to find a pitiful gathering of some blokes at a pub close to Luton. The factor that does stand out in my reminiscence is what Robinson, whose actual identify is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, mentioned to me. “It’s the Muslims which can be an issue,” he mentioned. “However you’re all proper. You converse English. You’re like us.”
By no means has one thing supposed as a praise been so totally offensive.
Pegida died rapidly. However the sentiment stayed with me – the concept rightwing males are the arbiters of whether or not black and brown British individuals are a suitable presence in our personal nation. That may be a notion that has solely gained power within the decade since, culminating this weekend when Robinson and his followers gathered to launch an assault of unprecedented viciousness towards British Muslims, calling for “re-migration” – an thought in any other case referred to as ethnic cleaning.
In the meantime, a extra rarefied, superficially respectable group is launching a gentrified model of an identical kind of assault. Unlikely to be discovered fraternising with union-jack clad Robinson followers, their weapon of alternative is the rightwing media – and their present goal is Misan Harriman.
Harriman is a well-liked determine on social media and in British cultural life. Oscar-nominated for his movie The After, he grew to become the primary black man to shoot the duvet of British Vogue, and his pictures of the Black Lives Matter protests went viral after which international, turning into the start line for a documentary movie Shoot the Individuals.
A few of his most transferring pictures are his images of Jewish folks, together with Holocaust survivors. Lots of them interpret their trauma, together with the continued trauma of an increase in antisemitism, as an crucial to face along with all those that denounce hate – together with in direction of Palestinians in Gaza and Muslims in Britain, in addition to members of their very own British Jewish group. When you had been to hunt a visible reference for what rejecting division and searching for unity appears to be like like in 2026, Harriman’s images could be it.
Since 2021, Harriman has been chair of the Southbank Centre, one among Europe’s largest cultural centres, a job that’s by definition targeted on defending inclusive areas for creativity and free expression. Given his excessive profile, his personal enjoyment of free expression is deployed with unimaginable care.
A small group of rightwing white males wish to see Harriman faraway from this position and have issued an astonishing vary of assaults throughout the institution media in a concerted marketing campaign to attain this. Like Robinson, they appear not a lot in his observe document, however whether or not he’s the proper kind of ethnic minority to be permitted of their milieu.
He’s being assailed from many instructions, in lots of and diversified methods. Regardless of being “educated at English personal faculties”, he “appears to have developed little curiosity or experience in classical music or another performing artwork type – one thing of a hindrance, one might imagine, for a person chairing an organisation with three live performance halls and 6 resident orchestras,” writes the Instances chief tradition author, Richard Morrison, for instance. Apparently being an Oscar-nominated director pales compared to his failure to play the cello. He additionally “has a well-documented friendship with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex”, laments the Telegraph arts correspondent Craig Simpson – absolutely a disqualifying function in itself. He’s, Telegraph readers are instructed by the use of description, a “Nigerian born British photographer”, the “professional Palestinian arts boss”.
Harriman can also be the son of a billionaire, these commentators regularly remind us. So I used to be significantly tickled to see none apart from Lord Roberts of Belgravia – the historian and notoriously underprivileged grandee of rightwing life – endorse Morrison’s piece as one of many signatories of a letter to the Instances saying that Morrison was proper to voice “rising issues for the Southbank Centre”.
Roberts’ intervention hints, maybe, to a darker agenda – the broader marketing campaign to self-discipline cultural establishments that give expression to totally different views and values in British public life. Roberts has been a vocal opponent of efforts by the Nationwide Belief to recognise the scars of slavery and colonialism throughout its historic properties – a measure he referred to as “foul”. He’s a defender of empire generally – “a noble endeavour that for the overwhelming majority of time introduced nice advantages for many of its native inhabitants” – and, hilariously on this regard, an incredible critic of cancel tradition.
Harriman little doubt presents the uncomfortable spectre of these “native inhabitants” entering into the good and excessive profile establishments of British life.
After which there may be the truth that Harriman’s detractors dislike his critique of Israel and have persistently tried to confuse this with antisemitism – and that is the main focus of the concerted transfer towards him. Some have alleged that feedback by Harriman in contrast Reform UK’s electoral success to the Holocaust. However what Harriman really did was quote the thinker Susan Sontag, utilizing the context of pre-war Germany to explain how the vast majority of individuals are persuadable, and will be swayed in direction of or away from extremism. The marketing campaign towards Harriman additionally perpetuates one other cynical allegation, that he shared a “conspiracy idea” about final month’s Golders Inexperienced assaults.
In reality, Harriman’s first response to the assault was an unambiguous publish expressing “solidarity to the Jewish group”. When Harriman accurately found that there had been a 3rd, Muslim sufferer of the identical attacker on the identical day, he – like many people – requested why many information headlines, in information organisations together with HuffPost and Sky, and why the Metropolitan police itself, didn’t instantly give this sufferer the identical standing and prominence. This appears to talk to an unwritten rule within the British media – {that a} zero-sum sport exists between recognising Jewish victims and Muslim victims, between recognising antisemitism and equally recognising Islamophobia.
It’s a poisonous thought, one accurately recognized by Amnesty, which additionally posted denouncing these smear-like makes an attempt towards Harriman: “after we permit one group’s trauma to be performed off towards one other’s, we weaken the muse of security for everybody.” A marketing campaign supporting a criticism to the Impartial Press Requirements Organisation (Ipso) in regards to the Telegraph’s protection has now garnered over 100,000 signatures.
As anybody involved by the Tommy Robinson march will uncover, for the British institution – our political leaders, police forces and rightwing media – violent Islamophobia just isn’t a precedence. All black British individuals are anticipated to take word, for worry of equally stepping out of line. As Britain’s oldest black newspaper, The Voice, famous with concern, “this isn’t accountability tradition, it’s extra reputational warfare”. The impact of the message couldn’t be extra clear: the experiment with “permitting” black figures into positions like Harriman’s may all be over in a heartbeat, if we dare to step out of line.
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