Is the policing two-tier?
Amid escalating far-right violence across England and in Belfast over the past week, instigators and apologists for the rioting have sought to spread a pernicious myth: the idea that white far-right “protesters” are the victims of a “two-tier policing” system that treats them more harshly because of their race and political views.
That is an idea propagated by Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, as well as Laurence Fox and various other social media demagogues in the past few days. On Monday, Nigel Farage claimed that “ever since the soft policing of the Black Lives Matter protests, the impression of two-tier policing has become widespread”.
Ah the impression has become widespread – not the thing itself, but the impression of the thing. Cautious. Crafty.
Agitators point to the policing failures that allowed organised grooming gangs of predominantly Asian men to operate in Rochdale in the 2000s…
The Rochdale abuse was scandalously ignored by police. But the argument that it is a factor in policing today ignores major reforms to the way child sexual exploitation is treated in the region, including the addition of a specialist unit in Greater Manchester police and every Ofsted inspection since 2014 finding that Rochdale now responds to reported cases effectively.
The Guardian says “Asian men”; is that a euphemism for Muslim men? Is the “Asian” more or less relevant than the “Muslim”?
Wikipedia on Rochdale child sex abuse ring:
The Rochdale child sex abuse ring involved underage teenage girls in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England. Nine men were convicted of sex trafficking and other offences including rape, trafficking girls for sex and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child in May 2012. This resulted in Greater Manchester Police launching Operation Doublet and other operations to investigate further claims of abuse. As of January 2024 a total of 42 men had been convicted resulting in jail sentences totalling 432 years.[1] Forty-seven girls were identified as victims of child sexual exploitation during the initial police investigation.[2][3][4] The men were British Pakistanis, which led to discussion on whether the failure to investigate them was linked to the authorities’ fear of being accused of racial prejudice.
So they likely were Muslims, or from Muslim families or of Muslim background or culturally Muslim or some category like that. Not necessarily devout or even obedient, but raised on Islamic views of women, which are not exactly generous.
There’s a lot of tiptoeing around this, for pretty obvious reasons. Apart from the Tommy Robinson-Laurence Fox types nobody actively wants to say that maybe importing Islam has some downsides, but then avoiding saying it leads to grooming gangs that get away with it for too long.
The two-tier claim seems to be more of the same thing. Maybe the police hold back on protests by “Asian men” more than the police hold back on other kinds of protests. Or maybe they don’t.
The Guardian continues:
Allegations of a two-tier system had gained currency even before the events of the past week, with claims about the policing of the pro-Palestinian protests in the UK since 7 October. Robert Jenrick, now a Conservative leadership candidate, claimed in March that two-tier policing had governed the police’s handling of those protests.
Cousins, you see. Islam v Judaism. Muslims v Jews. The Guardian and Beeb and so on don’t report it that way, because…what? It’s too painful to admit? It’s too dangerous to admit? I don’t know. But the result is that the religious aspect gets left out, when in reality the religious aspect is quite important (gross understatement). We’re all schooled to frame it in ethnic terms as opposed to goddy ones, but the goddy ones do in fact matter. Is it impossible to talk about this honestly? Maybe. I feel quite squeamish about spelling it out myself.