The referendum result, which has seen the United Kingdom vote to leave the European Union (EU), took even this seasoned political observer by surprise. Now we have to see what can be salvaged and how this will affect us as Arabs and Muslims living in the UK and entering a period of great uncertainty, greater societal division and the prospect of both Europe and the UK itself disintegrating.
Most commentators agree that the extreme right — overtly, violently racist — worked hard to tip the balance in favour of Brexit (leaving the EU) on June 23. Groups such as ‘National Action’ celebrated the tragic murder of the young pro-European MP, Joe Cox, and her attacker’s ‘sacrifice’. The most serious outcome of the vote is that this brutal tendency now considers itself mandated by the public.
Conflating migration with Islamophobia and terrorism, National Action posted tweets calling for ‘white jihad’, while another group, the ‘North West Infidels’ call refugees ‘rapefugees’, have instructed their followers to ‘shoot queers dead’ and tweeted that Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn should be hanged.
Thankfully, these extremists are only small in number, but they have come out of the woodwork and exposed a definite shift to the right and an explosion of xenophobia in populist politics, which Boris Jonson and Michael Gove shamelessly exploited.
The UK Independence Party (Ukip) — led by Nigel Farage, who has been on board the European gravy train for the last 17 years as a Member of the European Parliament — has wider reach and credibility among the public than National Action and its ilk. Ukip also focused its Brexit campaign on immigration and Islamophobia, warning that the nation was being “flooded” by immigrants who were stealing their jobs and homes. Visual materials made it clear that the “migrants” in question were not so much the Eastern Europeans who gained free access to the UK labour market on accession to the EU, but those currently drowning in their thousands in the Mediterranean, the majority of whom are Syrian.
In fact, Britain has taken in just 5000 Syrian refugees in five years. A number so insignificant that the country is not even mentioned in the latest United Nations report on the refugee crisis, published last week, which notes that 4.9 million Syrians have now left the country, with 6.6 million internally displaced. More than half the entire Syrian population (22.8 million) have been forced to flee their homes. Afghans and Somalians are also migrating in large numbers (2.7 million and 1.1 million respectively).
Iraq is home to another emerging refugee crisis as the battle gets underway to reclaim territories from Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant). In just one month, 85,000 have fled Fallujah since the battle began on May 23; 20,000 have already left Mosul in anticipation of an assault on the city that witnessed the birth of the self-declared Caliphate announced by Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi in its Grand Mosque. Experts predict a mass exodus of at least 600,000 when the fighting begins in earnest. It is a measure of how desperate these Iraqi refugees are that some 7,000 have fled to war-torn Syria rather than face the horrors of home.
Despite having played a major role in creating the chaos which has prompted this exodus (by invading Afghanistan and Iraq, by interfering in Libya, by meddling in Syria) the West has done little to help its victims. For all the furore in Europe, of 885,000 new arrivals (mostly by precarious boat journeys) only 310,000 were granted refugee status in 2015 (almost entirely Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans). The UN Refugee Agency recently reported that only 21 per cent of funds promised by the international community had been received.
Meanwhile, the countries bearing the biggest burden — and without the level of xenophobic hysteria that prompted Brexit — are low to middle income nations in the region — 86 per cent of all refugees have been taken in by countries like Turkey (with 2.5 million) and Jordan (600,000). Tiny Lebanon has taken the most compared to population with one refugee per five citizens.
These facts were not underlined by politicians and activists campaigning for Britain to remain in the EU. Indeed, I have to agree with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who expressed his great astonishment at how “casually” Britain floated into this disaster. Largely unchallenged, Ukip and the Brexiteers’ racist deception was most effective in the North East of England, where most people have never even seen an immigrant of any nationality.
The prospect of Muslim Turkey joining the EU was another highly effective red herring, expressed via lurid posters in which a British passport stood on its side like an open door with hundreds of footprints hurrying towards it: ‘Turkey is Joining The EU (population 76 million)’, it read. Turks were characterised by Leave campaigners as “criminals” and gun carriers who would be allowed to freely enter the UK. In fact, Turkey is nowhere near joining the EU due to strong resistance from major players like France, which adheres to its vision of Europe as essentially white and Christian.
Now that it has voted to leave, Britain will be dwarfed on the world stage and lose the position of influence it enjoyed thanks to its power within the world’s largest political and trading bloc. This will affect all British citizens and businesses, not to mention the universities where much research work is EU-funded.
For we who are Arabs and Muslims, specifically, Brexit offers negative and positive outcomes.
The worst impact will be on those of us who live in the UK. Muslims and Eastern Europeans are highly likely to be victims of an increasing number of xenophobic hate crimes. British Muslims may also face restriction on the freedom of movement they currently enjoy. Possession of a British passport may no longer be enough to allow the bearer to board a plane. Any Brit who does not have white skin and who is of Muslim appearance, whether from an Arab country or Asia may face much greater scrutiny and even interrogation at UK airports. All under the banner of ‘anti-terrorism’.
On the other hand, a diminishing role for Britain in the international community may enable a fairer debate on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Successive UK governments — whether Tory or Labour — have operated under the whip of the Zionist lobby and used their global clout to uphold Israel’s worst excesses. It was Britain’s immense credibility in the international community that allowed former British prime minister Tony Blair to stage-manage the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
These are reasons to be glad that Britain may shrink into a bite-sized political and diplomatic portion in terms of global politics. But the overall feeling in London, post-Brexit, is one of gloom and anxiety about the future of this once Great Britain. The nation’s Euro 2016 defeat at the hands of tiny Iceland (population 330,000) says it all.
Abdel Bari Atwan is the editor-in-chief of digital newspaper Rai alYoum. You can follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/@abdelbariatwan.
