If Britain can't learn from its legacy in Ireland, it's doomed to repeat those divides

The British commentariat is like a doctor grappling with an unknown disease. Struggling to identify the root causes, it can only panic as its patient, a maimed English working class, spasms before it. 

The prescribed injections of classism and brute force aren't working. 

To truly understand what ails old England, it must see where this has happened before. That means facing its legacy in Ireland and the intercommunal struggle it misdiagnosed and trivialised for decades.

This week saw roadblocks on English streets where gangs of roving youth checked drivers' ethnicity, smashed windows of cars and hours, torched minority businesses, and attacked places of worship, mainly mosques. 

The UK has seen all this before, just from a safe distance. Now that it's close to home, Britain needs more than platitudes about the "absurdity" of racists enjoying Indian curries and Belgian beers to bring society back from the brink.

British liberals might happily barter their dwindling privacy for security in the fortified suburbs, and so-called socialists might cheer for the police as society eats itself in the former Red Wall, but neither will stop the coming misery.

It's time to admit the festering division in Britain's forgotten corners have been ignored for too long and if the British state fails to act immediately there might be no going back.

The same segregated communities within communities that were allowed to build up in Northern Ireland have popped up all across the UK. The idea of a "no-go zone" may be dripping with xenophobia but the extremely insular nature of many working-class areas is very real. This is compounded by groups having different social meeting places, with fears of the other group preserved in the vacuum.

Two groups are on the rise politically in the UK, one is the reviled bloc of 'Gammon', Britain's out-of-favour white working class who flock to figures like Nigel Farage.

The other is the Muslim bloc, Britain's largest religious minority who are far easier to single out for attack by nativist rioters. This is evidenced by the decision to immediately target mosques after an attack by a Brit of Rwandan descent.

Screams of the UK's subaltern

Both these groups find themselves at the bottom rung of British society, both largely conservative, insular and traditionalist, they compete for resources. The highest tension regions in the UK seem to be plagued by statistics, drug misuse is the highest, and child poverty is also the highest. 

As these grim numbers continue to climb so do the numbers of different faces and funny accents. Correlation does not equal causation but in circumstances like these it’s likely impotent rage from a community that feels unheard will be unleashed on its nearest neighbours, often those in the exact same boat.

Mistrust between the communities is worsened by old wounds that tear open when tensions boil over. The damage done by grooming gangs, EDL marches, terrorist attacks and lone-wolf gunmen pour out of old wounds. In Ireland, such old wounds reopen every time unrest starts, such as Loyalist rioters holding up five fingers outside Sean Graham to signify the five Catholics killed there in 1992. 

The governments handling immigration, the clear frustration with high levels of immigration and the feeling of being replaced or under threat are driving this violence.

Creating specialised police units and rolling out FRT is all well and good, but it treats the symptom and not the cause. If there is to be any hope of Keir Starmer’s government quelling the violent rioting by a small number of people, he must first placate the mass of peaceful citizens standing beside them.

The recent spate of riots might burn out, but the feelings won't, for decades Northern Ireland teetered on the edge of violence, getting close to meltdown in times of economic hardship, and easing again in times of relative prosperity.

Legitimate concerns over demographic shifts, receding industry and competition for social housing breed hatred, and that hatred rises like acrid smoke to the classes above.

Jibes about bad teeth and unemployment simply serve to connote that the level of hardship and lack of services faced by many Brits is anathema to the chattering classes of the metropolitan core. This othering and alienation is commonplace in discussions of Northern Ireland, both from partitionists in the South to the seemingly oblivious population of Britain.

Nobody can fault the Muslim residents coming together to defend their homes and mosques amid the violence. The perception of the police accepting tokens of gratitude and multiple videos of large blades being carried in public with seemingly no recourse do not help accusations of ‘Two-tier policing’; another massive driver of conflict in Northern Ireland.

Currently tongue-tied by culture war platitudes, the British establishment can’t see the Sectarian and ethnic battle lines riven across the nation in the wake of marauding mobs. Admissions of failed integration in Germany, Denmark and Sweden signal a hardening of feelings toward migrants on a continental level. If Britain wants to avoid this it will need to face the problem with the ambition and creativity it seems capable of every couple of decades – doing nothing may be fatal for the UK we know today.

In a world where the riots kept their tempo for a week or two, British society would find itself tumbling into the grim world of self-imposed segregation, with former neighbours moving apart to avoid vigilantism and pogroms by other groups. A cycle of deadly tit-for-tat would quickly go beyond the ability of the police force to handle.

The Troubles in the north of Ireland did not start on any particular day, they were a cumulative buildup of violent incidents that eventually snowballed into mayhem, ebbing and flowing over their nearly 30-year span.

It may be hard for people in the cosmopolitan centres of England to grasp the “systematic immiseration of a significant part of the British population” as outlined in the UN report which declared Britain in violation of international law over the level of poverty.

Austerity and cuts have gutted public services and despite all the clapping, the sacred cow of the NHS is on its last legs. This is true for the whole island but felt more in its extremities. For many in said extremities, the spectacular transition from being the beating heart of an industrial empire to being the shit on its shoe is simply too much.

If inequality and integration are not addressed Britain faces mounting sectarian and class conflict. If the UK can’t learn from yesterday, tomorrow may announce itself with gunfire. It will be tower blocks not mansions that will be illuminated by the glow of burning cars, it will be vast estates in deindustrialised towns where the fear will fester and it will be the sidewalks of Britain’s boarded up high streets that the blood will be power washed off – Britain needs to listen.

Adam Doyle is an Irish artist and political commentator working under the moniker ‘Spicebag’. Doyle’s work around Irish culture, politics and Palestinian solidarity has garnered international coverage.

Follow him on Instagram: @spicebag.exe

Artwork done by: @melville_the_third

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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.