Our high streets are unrecognisable. Immigrants and asylum seekers flooding into Britain, swamping our schools and hospitals, stealing our jobs and homes, taking advantage of our generosity, and refusing to adapt to our way of life. They don’t dress like us, they don’t speak like us… they clearly don’t want to integrate. They want to establish a Caliphate in Britain… in Europe… in the United States. They don’t respect our laws… violent, culturally-depraved gangs groom our children, take over our cities and even elect themselves to high office, in a move to take over. They are not Christian. They don’t think like us. Unless we do something, Britain will be no more…

How do we know all this? We can see it with our own eyes – they are different. They look different and they sound and act differently. We can read about all the bad things they (or those that might be them) do – in the Daily Mail, the Express or the Telegraph. What’s more, experts and intellectuals such as Katie Hopkins, Lawrence Fox, Julia Hartley-Brewer, Nigel Farage feed our thirst for online anger and resentment at our cultural decline that needs to be attributed. They know the truth.

As for us ordinary folk… we’ve just had enough. No jobs, no money, rocketing prices and crumbling services. Our online gurus have told us who’s to blame, and who are we to disagree? So we take to the streets, to make our voices heard. “We don’t want no immigration” (to the tune of Another Brick in the Wall). But, when it all turns a bit nasty, and they trawl out the swastikas, smash in the doors and windows, burn the mosques and shelters, beat up a few brown people, Kristallnacht-style… well, then, it must be Russia up to its old tricks. (Metro, The Independent)

Russia, China, North Korea, Iran… if you buy into the “Axis of Evil” narrative, are all set on destroying the very Christian values and culture we hold so dear… the democracy we’ve fought so hard to establish since the days of Empire, for ourselves and for those we subjugate.

Conspiracy theorists dream up the craziest of ideas – such as Russia being involved in the incitement – even claiming that there’s a link between the EDL and Putin (and other state sponsors, who shall remain nameless). Russia is too easy (or obvious) a target, because it’s, obviously those Muslim asylum seekers that are to blame. So, let’s take a look at what our own, home-grown, defenders of Britain and Britishness have to say…

On the day of the Southport stabbings, July 29, Hopkins posted a video on X, questioning the Welshness of the suspect’s very Islamic-sounding made-up name Ali Al Shakati, and accusing the media and police of a coverup (to protect, presumably, Muslims – against the kind of hate reaction that her post and others like it were designed to incite). Even after it was revealed that the killer was neither Al Shakati nor asylum seeker (nor Muslim), she was unrepentant – presumably immune to both conscience and empathy.

But, perhaps, trying to burn out the refugees was a legitimate expression of the downtrodden (white) Englishmen simply trying to make their voices heard? Laurence Fox was outraged at the harsh (18-months) sentence for one who chanted ‘Who the fuck is Allah?’, proclaiming that “Britain is a two tiered society which has taken the knee in fear and subjugation to Islam.” On 11 August he tweeted “We have seen tens of thousands of people shout for the murder of Jews in London week after week for a year. Whilst the Mayor and the police looked in the other direction. We have watched as tens of thousands of people, year after year break the law by entering the United Kingdom without permission. The police took no action. Moreover these people are given hotel rooms, phones and free money.” Clearly he takes the same view as Suella Braverman, that marching for a ceasefire constitutes ‘hate’ and antisemitism (and that’s despite Jewish peace protesters on all of the marches in London vastly outnumbering those supporting Israel). Referring to Tommy Robinson’s far-right EDL march on 27 July, however, he tweeted that it was “A joyful celebration of our country, its values, history and traditions. Communists like Keir are fuelled by hatred, envy and jealousy. They seek to destroy the thing they cannot have.”

The theme of pro-Palestine marchers crops up frequently in posts from right-wing commentators, pushing the argument that ‘peace protesters’ actually represent hate (against all Jews) rather than just an end to the killing of tens of thousands of innocent people, or an end to decades of oppression. The dehumanisation of Muslims resonates throughout the media – whether it’s in response to crime, immigration, or to justify the war crimes that our nation participates in. So, perhaps its unsurprising that the more extreme Islamophobics such as Fox, Hopkins, and their ilk feel they have licence to spread disinformation and racist hate with impunity. But you have to ask yourself why they should want to do so. Clearly, in the case of some such influencers, there’s a monetary incentive (albeit, fairly well-hidden in the case of, say, Tommy Robinson or Nigel Farage).

It’s understandable, of course, after the years of austerity and exploitation that the poorest in our society have been subjected to, that something had to break. The drip feed from hate merchants such as these was bound to spark riots… after all, ordinary people have been ignored by the rich and powerful for far too long. But, while the left, historically, attacks the rich, the right blames the ‘other’. In 1930s Germany it was Jews. Today it’s Muslims.

We’re already primed to hate Islam – portrayed as the source of all the ills of our society – the savage, medieval, fanatical people that don’t deserve our empathy. However, we hit a bit of a problem when it comes to Palestine, where the non-stop stream of video evidence from citizen journalists belies the state narrative of self-defence and collateral damage… But, where you would expect, faced with these horrors, that support for the slaughter would weaken, press and politicians remain reluctant to take a humane or morally-informed stance. While 80 percent of Gaza is turned to rubble, and 15,000 children are dead, it’s the genocidal Palestinians themselves that are to blame. (And yes, they are Muslims – unlike Ukrainians.)

Western support for Israel rests on its being under existential threat from the forces of evil. And who better to represent that threat than… Iran. (That’s the current thinking, as communicated by those that inform our press and politicians.) To maintain support for the slaughter, therefore, Iran and its proxies must be called to account – not for defending Palestinians, but for threatening the state of Israel itself.