MyAV·¶

The event will take the form of a collaborative conversation addressing key questions about the events of summer 2024 and how we should approach the challenges raised. Speakers will offer brief opening remarks to help the group to think together. Participants will be encouraged to work with other members of the group and to contribute to collaborative thinking. This is neither a ‘political meeting’ nor an ‘academic talk’ - participants are asked to bring an openness to cooperation, uncertainty and exploration to the event.

The election of the Starmer government was followed quickly by an energetic resurgence of far right street mobilising. Communities rallied quickly to assert that fascists were not welcome, but not before arson attacks on hotels where migrants were being housed and a period of emboldened racist attacks on houses, individuals, cars and property. For some of us, it felt like the past had re-emerged and the thin veneer of ‘co-existence’ had been shattered.

At the same time, the framework of global politics was in crisis, with international institutions flailing and military might appearing to collapse any fragile arrangements for global governance. Both major political parties continued to support genocide, including through material assistance. Both major parties pledged to ‘stop the boats’ - with Labour promising efficiency in this task, not legality. By September, Starmer was meeting with Meloni to learn from the (unlawful) anti-migrant tactics of her fascist-led government, in the process suggesting that the horrific and dangerous ‘Rwanda scheme’ will be resurrected but with a new destination.

In many ways, this double movement of popular authoritarianism from above and street violence from below is familiar. It is also not a configuration peculiar to Britain and we see adaptations of the implicit coalition between street mobs and state repression in many places. 

We hope in this conversation to move beyond denunciation, and to make some space for the imaginative collaborative intellectual work needed to understand what is before us and to inform an antifascist politics fit for our times. Please register to attend: 

Opening remarks:

• Luke De Noronha - author of Deporting Black Britons (MUP, 2020); Against Borders (Verso, 2022).
• Sita Balani - author of Deadly and Slick: Sexual Modernity and the Making of Race (Verso, 2023).
• Joshua Virasami - author of How to Change it (Merky Books, 2020), A World without Racism (Pluto, 2024) and organiser with London Renters Union.

Facilitator: Gargi Bhattacharyya

The MyAV·¶ Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation explores the impact of racism - scientific, metaphysical and cultural.