Modern Britain: Multicultural Haven Or Racist Sewer?

You can watch the full uncensored video by clicking here

The #mytramexperience video has caused an outrage since going viral, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg…

You have to laugh at the naivety of some people. One Youtube video of a drug addled chav mumbling incoherently about how foreigners have ruined “her Britain” and people are up in arms about how shocking it is. Have they left their house recently? Have they turned on their televisions? Evidently not because there was nothing in that depressing video that I haven’t seen countless times each time I leave my house.

For those of you who haven’t been exposed to this latest political-debate-by-Twitter baiting video I shall give you a more detailed summary. A seemingly intoxicated woman, with a small child on her lap, is riding the Croyden to Wimbledon tram. Unprovoked she starts slurring racial abuse at the passengers, telling them that they should “go home” and that they’re not British. She seems barely capable of speaking English herself. She’s confronted by several passengers, including people who fit into her own demographic. She remains oblivious.

The video, filmed by one of the people on the receiving end of her moronic tirade, went viral and before you knew it celebrities were all chipping in with their views on how shocking the video was. Rent-A-Twat Piers Morgan even declared that “Britain is so much better than that vile bigoted creature.” But is it really?

While one video of someone hurling racist abuse and bewildered commuters was spreading round the internet like wildfire, there were some who were asking why far more shocking ones had been ignored. For example in June this year Brian Whelan posted a video of EDL members indiscriminately attacking Asian passengers on the tube in a super violent “happy-slapping”. The video itself still widely remains available on the internet yet doesn’t seem to have caused anywhere near the same stir. Is it perhaps a matter of some truths being too uncomfortable to face?

The rise of far-right sentiment in recent times is something that can’t be denied as much as people might prefer to ignore it. It is not three years since the BNP secured seats in the European parliament and in 2008 the party representative finished fifth in London’s mayoral elections, less than 8,000 votes behind that of the Green Party. The chairman of the BNP, Nick Griffin – seemingly a relation to Peter if his appearance on Question Time was anything to go by – achieved 14.6% of the vote in his Barking constituency to put him third. It was a record number for any of the seats the BNP had contested.

From my own personal experiences from living in Birmingham, a city that perhaps embodies the multicultural spirit more than any other in Britain, I have witnessed EDL marches and mini race-riots. I found it inconceivable to think that they would march here, that they would be allowed to try and invoke their hatred, but they turned up in force. The last time, just this October gone, I stood in the rain watching them try and provoke passers-by. Anyone who wasn’t white would be subject to racist abuse. Anyone with the tappings of Islam would be called a terrorist. Glasses and fireworks were hurled into the streets and at the police.

Despite these crimes being openly committed the local police made just four arrests. One of those was for possession of cannabis and the other was for an outstanding warrant. The other two related to weapons offences. None of the charges related to the crime of inciting racial hatred, which seems especially odd given the news that the woman who has sparked this whole debate has been arrested on the grounds of a racially aggravated offence. No doubt congratulatory backslapping shall ensue, as if with that gesture the spectre of racism has been banished from British shores. The reality is while it was vogue to rally against this one ignorant woman, daily far worse examples of racism are allowed to flourish in the dark corners of the British experiment.

The nay-sayers amongst you might say it is one thing to compare a spontaneous outburst in public to an organised and mobilised group of extremists. Yet what the video of our friend from Croydon demonstrates is what happens when the dehumanising mantra of racist language becomes subconscious thought, when racism is made to seem so socially acceptable that it goes mostly unchallenged and is dismissed as mere stupidity.

I would like to tell you I was shocked by the video in question but I wasn’t. Repulsed and disgusted but not shocked for a second. I’ve seen that woman out riding my local buses, I’ve seen her doing her shopping on my high street, I’ve seen her having a drink down my regular boozer and I’ve heard her countless times. The depressing reality is that she is everywhere.

Like a permanent feedback loop of bullshit the racism described as free-speech bleatings of the EDL and the BNP go out into the public domain and are repeated back parrot fashion by people who are looking for easy answers and targets to blame. Racist sentiment goes up in times of recession… Cost of living is expensive, jobs are scarce and the media is all too happy to present images of wealthy asylum seekers on yachts or keen immigrants willing to undercut minimum wage for unscrupulous companies in order to take your labour away from you. Do any of these things actually exist? Hardly, but it’s a convenient scapegoat and one that is so emotive it allows those with their own sinister agendas to take advantage amidst the ill feeling.

As sure as the government is to blame for the collective failings that impact on the lives of its citizens, they are also partly to blame for these issues too. They won’t talk about the elephant in the room, avoid the issues that the extremists openly campaign on. This gives them a credence and authenticity they should not be afforded. These are, for the most part, thugs donning suits and playing at politics. They don’t have the answers. They barely have ideas.

That video is sadly an example of what passes for political discourse amongst a significant and growing number of British people. There’s no getting away from that. For many people exposure to that sort of hate is an almost daily occurrence. Racism doesn’t need an umbrella organisation to proliferate, all it needs for that to happen is to go uncontested by those with the means to expose it for what it is. Is the reaction to this video something more concerned with Twitter trends, or is it the start of a genuine stance against the casual racism that has become part of the day to day? Either way, let’s not use it as an excuse to pretend that Britain is an example of tolerance to anybody.

Sabotage Times

Thanks to NewsHound for the heads-up

What does the Serbian wife think of her husband...the BNP's biggest donor?

Multicultural marriage: Charles Vernon Wentworth,
the BNP's largest cash donor - and Eastern European wife Zorka

His family's power and influence may have waned since the days when they owned great swathes of England, and a castle and country estates were named in their honour. In his Suffolk manor, however, Charles Vernon Wentworth, 52, millionaire scion of an aristocratic clan dating back to the Domesday Book, still carries considerable clout.

His inherited wealth includes a 660-acre farm in Friston - a pretty hamlet of pink-washed cottages and narrow lanes. The village green and meeting hall also belong to him, so parishioners must seek his permission to stage fairs and other events there, just like commoners of old.

Inevitably, Mr Wentworth's importance makes him the subject of much local gossip; and the fact that he is a rather reclusive, enigmatic figure who has been married three times and habitually goes unshaven and wears scruffy old clothes only adds to the air of intrigue that surrounds him. Tongues were wagging again this week when newly-released documents revealed him to be the British National Party's most generous benefactor, having reportedly donated some £38,000 to Nick Griffin and his extreme Right-wing cronies in recent years.

'Fancy him supporting that lot - he's a disgrace to the Wentworths,' sniffed one long-time resident, who declined to be named for fear of offending the man who also funds the annual children's Christmas party.

Others were astounded, pointing out that their timeless rural idyll is hardly an obvious breeding ground for the politics of fear and bigotry. Most people here are relatively well-off, crime is virtually unknown (according to one parish councillor, there have been two burglaries in 25 years) and ASBOs are something you only read about in the Ipswich newspapers. Furthermore, Friston appears to be the exclusively white Anglo-Saxon community of Griffin's dreams. Among those residents I spoke to this week, no one could think of a single person among its 300-odd inhabitants who comes from an ethnic minority.

Clearly, then, they don't know much about their own squire's new bride. For, by the deepest of ironies, the Mail has discovered that the latest lady in the Wentworth manor is of Eastern European extraction.

Strolling along a damp autumnal lane in her Wellingtons and padded jacket this week, her pet Doberman straining at the leash, the wife of the BNP's arch-backer looked every inch the English landowner's wife. Yet the maiden name of 39-year-old Zorka Wentworth was Ilic. Her mother is from Kosovo, her late father Serbian. Having fled to Britain in the 1950s to escape the tyrannical communism of Yugoslavia under Tito, they were precisely the sort of immigrants who would be barred from entering the country if Griffin had his way.

Although she was born in Bedfordshire, Zorka considers herself half-English and half-Serb, speaks with a very slight Eastern European accent (presumably because she was raised to be bilingual), is Serb Orthodox by religion and celebrates both Serbian and English festivals. This kind of duality would hardly be welcomed in Griffin's ethnically sanitised Utopia. After all, during last week's Question Time debacle, the BNP leader described white Britons as 'aboriginals': English, Scots, Irish and Welsh people 'who have been here for the last 17,000 years'.

Ludicrously, Mrs Wentworth - who met her husband eight years ago, when she was working as a chef in the local pub, and became his third wife last year - would not even be permitted to join the party her husband bankrolls so generously.

Charles and Zorka Wentworth are evidently struggling to see the irony. Talking to the BNP's most unlikely darling couple this week, over cups of tea in their stylish country kitchen, I began to understand why. They seem far removed from the hate-filled BNP rabble-rousers who wave banners in Northern mill towns. And as Mr Wentworth remarks wryly, he is no 'knuckle-dragging' skinhead.

Yet they give the distinct impression that they don't know nearly enough about Griffin and his racially divisive policies, even though Mr Wentworth says he read 'the bulk of' the party's manifesto before opening his cheque-book. 'Is it really £38,000? I thought it was £28,000, but I can't recall. I don't keep personal bank records.'

Does he support them, then, because he has some longstanding connection with Griffin, who was raised just a few miles away in Suffolk and attended fee-paying Woodbridge School, where two of Wentworth's four children were educated? The squire scratches a stubbly chin and ponders. No, he replies, he wasn't acquainted with the BNP leader until they were introduced at a party rally a few years ago.

'I was smoking one of these, and Griffin didn't like it,' he grins, pointing to his hand-rolled cigarette. 'Nick hates smoking.'

But why was he at the rally in the first place? What common ground does he share with Griffin? He grins again and continues: 'I think the death penalty for serious crimes is an issue. I don't know how that would go down in a referendum. But for the likes of the Harold Shipmans, and serial rapists and killers, I would like to see it re-introduced.'

A short, square-built man with a complexion which suggests he enjoys his wine (Serbian reds are a favourite), and a sardonic wit, Mr Wentworth shoots his wife a meaningful glance, then adds: 'And obviously you are going to ask me about immigration.'

His five-figure donation is all the more surprising given his experiences as a young man in the United States. After leaving public school, he went travelling there and his girlfriend fell pregnant. Needing a job to support her, he joined the U.S. Air Force and served for four years. This was long before 9/11 and he says they had a policy of actively enlisting foreigners. He says he formed friendships with several Hispanic servicemen. And later, when he left the military and lived on the West Coast (he worked for a U.S. pest control company before returning to his Suffolk estate), he also saw how multiculturalism worked.

But why, if he accepts it works over there, would it not work here?

'America is historically a melting pot, isn't it?' he says, adding that its vast size meant it was better able to accommodate people of diverse nationalities. In contrast, he argues, this country is too crowded a nation to cope with an influx of foreigners. He recites the familiar argument about Britain being 'overloaded'; and since none of the other parties seems willing to pull up the drawbridge, he has joined, and funded, the BNP.

'I'm not vile or odious - the adjectives they always attach to the BNP. I don't agree with everything they're saying on this, but I'm sure you get die-hard Labour supporters who don't agree with every policy their party has. Or Liberals or Tories.'

Zorka interjects: 'He's not a racist; I'm not a racist. I know the man here. He's not a Nazi.'

Perhaps not, but how can he possibly fund a party who would have turned away his refugee parents-in-law, and possibly his wife?

'I don't think they would send her back home,' he says uneasily, then, almost in the next breath, admits that he is not 'completely au fait' with BNP immigration policy.

'As far as I'm concerned, if anyone's here legally, I think they should be allowed to stay. They're not going to send her back home and neither will I.'

The new Mrs Wentworth grasps her husband's hand and smiles at him. She has met 'Nick', she says, and found him charming. In any case, she and her parents aren't the type of Eastern Europeans he wants to see the back of.

'You can't tar everyone with the same brush,' she argues, seemingly unaware that the average BNP thug, who lives in a very different Britain from the one she has married into, does precisely that.

'My father got a job in the brickworks at 16 and worked hard all his life. My mother came here at 14 and, at just turned 70, she has only just retired. They never claimed benefits in their lives, and worked to make this country better. They aren't the same as the influx who have come here since the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, and still come here now, demanding mobile phones and houses. A lot of them are Bosnian Muslims, but there are also Croats and Serbs. They are so-called asylum seekers and refugees, but they are a lot of s*** basically. They just came over to milk the country.'

Sensing that she is going too far, she catches herself and adds: 'Not all of them, obviously.'

Soon, though, she is sounding off again. 'Britain has huge problems - with everything. I find it absolutely frightening. Youngsters nowadays terrify me; you only have to pick up your newspaper every day.'

Does she have some first-hand experience of this? Do muggers lurk in the hollyhocks?

'No, no - but we are lucky to live in a tranquil part of the country,' she says. 'Others are not so fortunate.'

My morning with the Wentworths left me perplexed. Since I find their politics so abhorrent and worryingly ill-informed, I had expected to despise them. When the conversation moves away from politics, however, they turn out to be a rather engaging pair. Mrs Wentworth has taught her husband some Serbian, and over a traditional Serb dinner - made with their home-grown vegetables - they sometimes converse in her language.

He is also knowledgeable about Balkan history, reminding me that the Serbs were among Britain's greatest allies during the War and how thousands were slaughtered by the Nazis. (Just how this squares with Griffin's admiration for Hitler, he struggles to explain.)

There is much that is decent about Charles Wentworth and his 'alien' wife, too. Each night, they invite the old man who lives alone nearby into their home for supper. And in addition to funding a Christmas party for every child in the village, Mr Wentworth has purchased much of the play equipment on the village green - anonymously, so as not to make a fuss. Given his charitable nature, and his readiness to embrace her family's customs and traditions, it comes as no surprise to hear that Zorka's mother 'adores Charles', as did her late father.

Clearly, theirs is a model multicultural marriage - one whose very success makes a nonsense of the BNP's opposition to the mingling of races, ethnicities and cultures. This reinforces one's impression that the couple, though not by nature malevolent, are dangerously naive and that - in the absence of persuasive policies from the main parties - the BNP are playing on their fears to maximum effect.

Judging by the names listed among the party's major financial backers this week, other unlikely figures are falling into the same trap. They include Plymouth widow Mrs Sheila Butler, the 83-year-old greatniece of World War I hero Lord Horatio Kitchener, who has donated her £11,032 savings to the BNP, because, she told me: 'Nick Griffin is a patriot - like my great-uncle.'

She said she had abandoned the Tories, and then UKIP, because 'I don't like it that most people [here] are brown, yellow or green these days', and the BNP was the only party that promised to recreate Britain as the country of her youth.

Another prominent donor is Kent fruit farmer Adam Champneys, who is reported to have given the BNP £15,000 in the past year alone. He is battling a serious illness and was unavailable for comment this week. However, like Charles Wentworth and Kitchener's great-niece, this accomplished pilot and antiques collector, who served in the Intelligence Corps, is far removed from the disaffected, down-at-heel rabble one normally associates with the BNP.

Whether or not we believe the BNP's spin doctors when they claim that membership inquiries have soared on a wave of public sympathy after Griffin's Question Time mauling, it would be foolish to ignore their broadening appeal. For when a wealthy English landowner places one hand around the shoulder of his new Eastern European bride and with the other signs a £38,000 cheque to a party who would banish her from the country of her birth, we should all feel more than a little worried.

Mail Online

Hope not hate Update: Stop the race hate

The Sugababes on the bus of hope

The Sugababes broke away from their sell-out tour at the weekend to back the Daily Mirror Hope not Hate anti-racism bus campaign. The night before performing at Coleen McLoughlin's 21st birthday party in Cheshire the girls boarded the bus backstage at Birmingham's NEC.

Amelle Berrabah, the newest member of the group, said: "We were all always brought up by our parents not to judge people by their religion or the colour of their skin."

As a mixed-race band the girls are a great example of a modern multi-cultural Britain. Keisha Buchanan added: "To discriminate against someone because of the colour of their skin is completely unacceptable. There's enough hate in this world."

The bus was in the Midlands and the Potteries all weekend, visiting the NEC, Birmingham City Centre, Dudley and Stoke-on-Trent on its journey from London to Glasgow. Yesterday a special Hope not Hate action day was held at West Bromwich African-Caribbean Centre with food stalls, steel bands and a guest appearance by singer-song-writer Billy Bragg.

Local boys UB40 also lent their support to the campaign. The band, formed in Moseley, in 1978, still have the original eight-man line-up. They were one of Britain's first multi-cultural bands and represent a wide ethnic mix - Yemeni, Welsh, Scottish, West Indian and Irish. UB40 vocalist Astro said: "I've experienced racism - more so when I was a teenager. You kind of expected it."

But he warned: "In some respects it's better these days but years ago everyone used to mix in together, which was good. Nowadays everyone has become insular. Jamaicans won't go out of Jamaican areas, Asians are sticking with the Asians. There are no-go areas now. From that respect it's got worse and it worries me."

Mirror

...and from Ros Wynne-Jones' blog

On to Stoke...

Saturday morning - it turns out there's no more racism in Britain and we can all go home!!!Oh, April Fool...

The bus went to Stoke today for a children's fun day. I spent most of the day hiding from oversize vehicles, planning for next week, answering emails and getting some washing done.

Two things:

1) who should I see in the lift at the hotel but two freshly scrubbed Sugababes in fluffy dressing gowns, showercaps and no makeup, on the way up from the spa downstairs.... (We stayed posh on Saturday to cheer ourselves up). "How embarrassing," mutters Keisha, hiding behind her hands. In flat spa slippers, the Babes are miniscule. They were still nice enough to wish us well with the bus though... And they were getting ready for Colleen McLoughlin's 21st birthday bash. Now that's going to be a party - like three series of Footballers' Wives rolled into one episode of Shameless as photographed by Hello...

2) On Friday night we had a bus night out in West Bromwich. Nick Lowles, the man without whom this trip would never have happened, had told us about a fantastic Sikh pub on the high street. None of us had ever been to a Sikh pub, and in the interests of exploring Britain's cultural diversity (and scoring a couple of pints of Guinness) it was an irresistable proposition...

We got there late (we get everywhere late) and the pub looked a bit dodgy from the outside, but inside it was rocking with Guinness-soaked Sikhs on a Friday night out. Better still, there was a hatch at the back where you could order every type of curry, kind of like Christmas and birthday rolled into one....

Hero of the day: Chefs at the back of the Sportsman pub in West Bromwich

Observation of the day: You think people are different and then you go into a Sikh pub and you find everyone's the same.

Quote of the day: "The biggest arsehole in two shoes..." (Another Forest of Deanism from Tony the driver)

Smell of the day: Freshly scrubbed Sugababe..

Tune of the day: Anything by Robbie Williams (not current album), as the bus visited his home pub, the Red Lion, in Stoke...

Mirror

Babyshambles recruit acts to fight racism

British rockers Babyshambles are joining forces with Dirty Pretty Things and The View to fight the spread of racism in the music industry.

Led by Babyshambles bassist Drew McConnell and singer Lisa Moorish - Pete Doherty's ex - the artists are to release a special album this year (07) to counter an attempt by far-right groups like the British National Party to influence young music fans by handing out free CDs.

McConnell says, "The manifesto for the CD is that multicultural Britain should be celebrated. Immigration is not to blame for unemployment or housing problems, and does not negatively affect the economy. The British National Party tell us this is the case. We want them to know they're not fooling us."

Other artists involved in the project, which is part of the Love Music Hate Racism campaign, include rapper Lupe Fiasco, Albert Hammond Jr and The Noisettes.

femalefirst

Belgians brave rainstorm for anti-racism weddings

Braving rain and hail, hundreds of Belgians took part in a symbolic ceremony yesterday in a town where three couples refused to be married by a black official.

In an impressive show of solidarity against those who have given the term "white wedding" a bad name, the couples exchanged or renewed their marriage vows in the Flemish town of St-Niklaas.

The demonstration was in support of Wouter Van Bellingen, who was born in Rwanda but adopted by a Flemish family at birth and was elected a councillor in the town last October. In February, when the three couples refused to be married by him, Mr Van Bellingen, the town's deputy mayor, described the incident as "the most primitive form of racism", because it was motivated by "nothing but the colour of my skin".

Yesterday he appeared to have made the most of his adversity, as the mass wedding he organised attracted the attention of the international media. At least 2,000 letters and emails have poured in since the incident.

By early evening, couples had gathered in the town's market square in their finery before an event held in a marquee. Chosen to coincide with the International Day against Racism the ceremony began with a group hug before the assembled couples exchanged or renewed vows in a ceremony overseen by Mr Van Bellingen. Couples then took part in a mass wedding photo, before tucking into a "multicultural dessert buffet" and taking part in a wedding dance.

The row has focused attention on attitudes towards race in a part of Belgium renowned for its sympathy with the far right. In last year's elections the anti-immigration, Flemish separatist party, the Vlaams Belang won 26 per cent of the vote.

The group has accused Mr Van Bellingen of using the mass wedding to further his own political ambitions.

Independent