The UK is slipping into racist dystopia

It has been a year since the Southport attack, which triggered furious racist riots in the streets of the United Kingdom. Unruly crowds, galvanised by false claims that the perpetrator was Muslim, went on a rampage, attacking mosques, Muslim-owned businesses, homes, and individuals they perceived as Muslim.

As the riots were raging, I was finishing my novel, The Second Coming. The book is set in a dystopian future in which a Christian militia inspired by English nationalism seizes London, bans Islam, and exiles Muslims to refugee camps in Birmingham. The events unfolding in the streets as I was writing the final chapters made me realise that today, we are much closer to the dystopian world in my novel than I had imagined.

The scenes and images that helped me shape this fictional world were inspired by the England I lived in during my youth, when racist violence was rampant. Gangs of white youth would hunt us down, especially after the pubs closed, in wave after wave of what they called “Paki bashing”.

Knife attacks and fire bombings were not uncommon, nor were the demands by far-right groups, such as the National Front and the British National Party, for the repatriation of Black (ie, non-white) “immigrants”.

Attending school sometimes meant running through a gauntlet of racist kids. In the playground, sometimes they swarmed around, chanting racist songs.

As a student, I lost count of the number of times I was physically attacked, at school, in the street, or in pubs and other places. When I lived in East London, I was with the local youth of Brick Lane, where hand-to-hand fighting took place to stop hordes of racist attackers. These assaults were not an isolated phenomenon. Similar scenes took place across the country, with the National Front and British National Party organising hundreds of marches, emboldening white supremacist gangs.

Around this time, some of my peers and I were arrested and charged with “conspiracy to make explosives” for filling up milk bottles with petrol as a way of defending our communities against racist violence; our case came to be known as the Bradford 12. These struggles, whether in Brick Lane or Bradford, were part of a broader fight against systemic racism and far-right ideologies that sought to terrorise and divide us.

The overt, street-level violence of those years was terrifying, but it came from the margins of society. The ruling political class, though complicit, avoided openly aligning with these groups. A case in point is Margaret Thatcher, who in 1978, as the leader of the Conservative Party, gave an infamous interview in which she said, “People are really rather afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture.” It was a subtle nod of approval for racist mobs, but as prime minister, Thatcher still kept far-right groups at an arm’s length.

Today, that distance has disappeared. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and other prominent members of Labour regularly echo far-right rhetoric, promising to “crack down” on those seeking sanctuary here. His Conservative predecessor, Rishi Sunak, and his ministers were not different. His Home Minister Suella Braverman falsely claimed grooming gangs had a “predominance” of “British Pakistani males, who hold cultural values totally at odds with British values”.

While the old crude white racism has not disappeared, a more vicious form – Islamophobia – has been fanned over the past few decades. It feels like the old “Paki” bashing gangs have been replaced by a new crusading wave that equates Islam with terrorism; sexual abuse with Pakistanis; asylum seekers with parasitic hordes about to overrun the country.

This is the soil in which the Reform Party has taken root and flourished, in which ever cruder forms of racism are made respectable and electable. When both Labour and the Tories have become havens for a complex web of political corruption, Reform’s simple anti-migrant and Islamophobic tropes are projected as an honest alternative. This has propelled the far-right party to the top of polls, with 30 percent of voters supporting it, compared with 22 percent for Labour and 17 for the Conservatives.

In this environment, it was rather unsurprising that for the anniversary of the riots, the Economist magazine decided to run a poll focusing on race rather than on issues of economic decline, social deprivation and the never-ending austerity to which the working people of this country have been subjected. The survey showed that nearly 50 percent of the population think that multiculturalism is not good for the country, while 73 percent thought more “race riots” will happen soon.

The nurturing of violent racism at home has run parallel with England’s long history of enacting it abroad. The new face of racism is fed on old imperial tropes of savages that need to be tamed and defeated by civilised colonial rule. These racist ideologies, which welded the empire together, have come back home to roost.

They are playing out in the racist violence on the streets and in the state’s repression of Palestine supporters. They are also playing out in the UK’s unwavering political and military support for Israel, even as it bombs hospitals and schools in Gaza and starves children. Empire taught Britain to use racism to dehumanise entire peoples, to justify colonialism, to plunder, to spread war and famine. Genocide is in Britain’s DNA, which explains its present-day collusion with genocidal Israel.

Against this backdrop of racist, imperial violence, people of all colours and religions and none have mobilised. While they may not have stopped the genocide, they have laid bare the hypocritical barefaced lies of the British political elite. Only this sort of solidarity and challenge to racism can stop the dystopic world of my book becoming a reality.

Russia jails journalist for alleged Navalny links amid crackdown on dissent

As the Kremlin intensifies its crackdown on dissent, a Russian court has sentenced journalist Olga Komleva to 12 years in prison on “extremism” charges stemming from her connections to an opposition group.

Komleva, 46, was found guilty of “extremist” ties to her alleged false information about the Russian army in her reporting on the Ukrainian conflict and her alleged involvement in the late opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s banned political party on Tuesday.

The verdict highlights Moscow’s growing repression, which now targets both former opposition figures and active critics.

Komleva had volunteered for Navalny’s party before it was banned in 2021, according to an independent newspaper called Mediazona. She later covered Russian military assault on Ukraine and anti-government protests for independent newspaper RusNews.

In addition to enacting comprehensive censorship laws, the Kremlin has expanded its decade-long crackdown on independent media as part of its campaign in Ukraine.

A district court in the city of Ufa, in central Russia, found that the defendant had engaged in extremist activity and “spread intentionally false information about the armed forces’ actions,” according to a statement.

The defendant was found guilty, and the defendant was given a 12-year prison sentence, the court continued.

Both charges were untrue, and the journalist denied guilt.

After hearing the verdict, Komleva smiled and waved to a group of people who came to her and said, “I love you all,” according to a video released by RusNews.

Komleva, according to Mediazona, has diabetes and had trouble getting medication while undergoing medical supervision.

Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s main rival, was declared an “extremist” by Russian authorities in 2021 after he died in an untold cell last year in an Arctic penal colony.

Ali Shariati and the Iranian revolution

The Iranian revolutionary scholar Ali Shariati’s life served as the catalyst for the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

Ali Shariati, a well-known Iranian scholar whose revolutionary ideas helped form the ideological foundation of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, is the untold story. In this film, Shariati explores how the Shah’s Iran’s radical interpretation of religious thought redefined Islam as a revolutionary force in opposition to authoritarianism and repression, and how this led to an escalating generation’s need for change.

In Paris in the 1960s, Shariati was exposed to fresh concepts, including Algeria’s fight for French independence. The Shah’s secret police repeatedly imprisoned him and called him subversive.

Four killed, hundreds arrested in Angola protests against fuel price hike

In a protest against a rise in fuel prices in the capital of Angola, at least four people were killed, and hundreds were detained, according to police.

The government’s decision earlier this month to increase the price of diesel, which caused significant increases in the fares for minibus taxis, a significant mode of transportation for many Angolans, caused the protests to start on Monday.

In the Cazenga neighborhood in central Luanda, where people were seen removing food and other goods from shops, gunfire could be heard.

Conflicts broke out in the Prenda and Rocha Pinto neighborhoods near the airport, according to social media images.

In connection with rioting, vandalism, and shop looting, police said in a statement on Tuesday that hundreds of arrests had been made. Roads and cars were blocked, and vehicles were damaged.

On Tuesday, Luanda’s transportation system was in effect but stores were still closed.

Angola, one of Africa’s top oil producers, is angered by the government’s decision to increase heavily subsidised fuel prices from 300 to 400 kwanzas ($0.33 to $0.44) per litre, where many people are living in poverty.

The Minibus taxi associations launched a three-day strike to protest the move, which started on Monday and increased their fares by up to 50%.

We are tired, a protester told Angola’s TV Nzinga, “We must announce something for things to change… for us to live in better conditions.”

Why do you cause this kind of suffering for us? What will our children eat? When speaking to President Joao Lourenco, a woman said, “The prices have to go down.”

As looting occurs on July 28, 2025, the Angola National Police patrol the Luana district of Kalema 2 [File: AFP]

In a press release about the violence on Monday, deputy commissioner Mateus Rodrigues claimed that the police “currently report four deaths.” He didn’t specify how they happened.

According to Rodrigues, 400 people were detained overnight by police for suspected involvement in the unrest after 100 were detained on Monday. He added that 25 private vehicles and 20 public buses suffered damage, while 45 shops were vandalized. Additionally, banks were the target.

Since the announcement of the price increase for diesel on July 1st, protests have been abating.

In a July 12 protest, police, according to Human Rights Watch, allegedly used tear gas and rubber bullets excessively.

Settler sanctions are theatre. Hathaleen’s murder exposes the cover-up

Awdah Hathaleen, a Palestinian activist, was shot in the chest by an Israeli settler on July 28, 2025, resulting in his death. The shooter was identified as Yinon Levi, a settler who had previously been approved by the European Union, the UK, and the US during the Biden administration.

Hathaleen, a 31-year-old activist and educator from Masafer Yatta in the South Hebron Hills, was a devoted student. He also played a supporting role in the decades-old settlement-aligned soldiers’ relentless attacks in the Oscar-winning film No Other Land.

Hathaleen’s murder is not unique. Since the West Bank’s genocide began in Gaza in October 2023, there have been more than 1, 000 Palestinian deaths there. A sharp rise in Palestinian land seizures and home demolitions come with this upsurge in violence. The Israeli government has accelerated its West Bank takeover plans by using the genocide in Gaza as cover. The Israeli Knesset approved a non-binding motion to annex the entire territory just days before its three-month summer break.

The Knesset’s motion comes one year after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared that Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestinian territories must end. It was ruled illegal in July 2024. The deadline for the court’s order was September 2025, which the court set for the Israeli government to end.

Countries like Australia, France, the UK, and Canada all announced sanctions against a small number of settlers and those involved in the settlement process in the months leading up to the ICJ ruling. Yinon Levi, the killer of Hathaleen, was one of those punished. These nations’ travel bans and financial restrictions have, as expected, not had an impact on the ground. Levi, who is operating in full army protection, continued to attack Palestinians from his illegal settler outpost.

These sanctions not only fail to have an impact, but they also allow the Israeli regime to avoid accountability by portraying settler violence as an insult rather than as an extension of state policy by targeting just a select few settlers.

States take measures to demonstrate their support for international law by purposefully distinguishing between “extremist” settlers and the rest of the Israeli regime, avoiding conflict with the regime itself.

Israel’s state policy has always been to expand its territory across all of Historical Palestine and beyond, as demonstrated by the occupation of some of southern Syria and Lebanon over the past two years.

More than 700,000 settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem today, spread across more than 250 settlements and outposts that are run by state-owned security forces, planning agencies, and that violate international law. Hollow measures like the Levi ban have helped to fuel this expansion, where targeting a select few people only serves to protect the regime from the very system they support.

This political theater is completely absurd. While maintaining full diplomatic, economic, and military support for a regime that is by definition a settler regime, one cannot meaningfully sanction settler violence. The settler and the state are mutually exclusive. It is complicity to sanction one while allowing the other to be legitimized is not accountability. The murder of Hathaleen is not unusual, but it is the direct result of a system that is supported, protected, and excused by the same states that claim to oppose it. These actions establish and maintain the status quo while not challenging it. By imposing comprehensive sanctions and real accountability that target the system, not just its murderous foot soldiers, to break this cycle, states must end their support for Israel’s genocidal regime of settlement and occupation completely.