Capitalism not immigration has failed those involved in anti-migrant riots across England

Let no Irishman throw a stone at the foreigner; he may hit his own clansman. Let no foreigner revile the Irish; he may be vilifying his own stock. James Connolly

The series of race and anti-migrant riots that have been sweeping across England’s vast deindustrialised regions in the North West, North East, Midlands and Yorkshire have been ineffably ugly to behold.

Gangs of masked up men attacking hotels occupied by asylum seekers and trying to set them on fire, launching missiles at thin police lines, burning down libraries, attacking Asian-owned businesses and shops, throwing Nazi salutes and launching broadsides against mosques: this is not Germany circa 1934 and 35, it is England now, today, in 2024.

That the far right has been emboldened across England by Brexit in 2016 is now not in doubt. Brexit was never about democracy, it was about identity. It was about who is really British and who is really not. It was about who really belongs in Britain and who really does not. And it was about what it really means to be British and what it really does not.

Millions of poor working class whites in beleaguered communities across the North and Midland were told and believed that Brexit would solve all their problems, and that…