Racist Incidents Skyrocket After Brexit Vote

Source: Huffington Post

By Willa Frej

The fallout following the British vote to leave the European Union has triggered an uptick in racist incidents.

An aversion to immigration has been at the forefront for the “leave” camp, emboldening xenophobes to reportedly come out of the shadows and publicly attack immigrant communities.

Eyewitnesses have taken to social media to describe incidents they have encountered, and an account called Post Ref Racism was started on both Twitter and Facebook to offer people a “space to document the increase in racism,” according to the page’s description.

My home town of Newcastle. This afternoon. I feel like I am back in the 1980s.

“I’ve never had a day of so many people telling me to go back to Africa,” Olusoga told The Telegraph.

“Table next to me says to Polish waitress “How come you’re so cheerful? You’re going home.” Him and the missus started laughing.” Disgusting

A woman shouted “There’s one of them, send that back” as a Sri Lankan child walked past with his mum.

Gloucester @Tesco: ‘this is England, foreigners have 48 hours to f**k right off. Who is foreign here? Anyone foreign?’

This weekend I and my family have witnessed 3 “when are you going home?” Racist incidents aimed at EU citizens here.

And a video uploaded to YouTube one day after the referendum purportedly shows a man exiting his car in the Hackney area of London and yelling “f*****g foreigner, go back to your country” at another driver.

these cards have actually been put through letter boxes of Polish families in Huntingdon today. I could weep

Britain’s Polish community has been specifically targeted by xenophobic sentiments. Police are investigating various “racially motivated hate crimes“ targeting Poles in England.

Authorities first found leaflets saying “no more Polish vermin” in central England.Graffiti demanding that Poles leave the U.K. was later discovered at a Polish cultural center in London.

The spokesman for Poland’s President Andrzej Duda demanded that Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, the two primary leaders of the “leave” movement, condemn the “outrageous barbarity“ of these actions.

Prime Minister David Cameron responded to the incidents on Monday. His government “will not tolerate intolerance” and condemns “some of the incidents we have seen across the country over the weekend of intimidating migrants and telling them that they need to go home,” he said.

And a Labour member of parliament, Jess Phillips, tweeted that she would submit a question to Parliament to find out how many racial incidents had occurred over the weekend compared with prior to the referendum.

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Categories: Europe, Racism, The Muslim Times, UK

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