Irish writer charts changing attitudes to immigrants

Polish construction workers could be heard as they fitted out a shop close to 8pm, as theatre-goers headed on Wednesday for the nearby Pentameters Theatre above the Horseshoe pub in Hampstead.

Inside, the theatre, a relic of the 1960s, was showing No Blacks, No Dogs, No Poles, a play by the Kilmacthomas, Co Waterford-born writer, Tom O'Brien, which explores racism in Ireland and Britain.

Racism is back on the agenda in Britain, following the upsurge in support for the UK Independence Party in last week’s European Parliament and local elections.

A survey says that the British people are becoming more racist. Up to a third of British people polled for the British Social Attitudes survey – which has been running every year since 1983 – admit to feeling either “very”, or “a little” prejudiced.

Opinions have been hardening for more than a decade: first against Muslims on the back of 9/11 and then against Eastern Europeans in the wake of the decision by the UK and Ireland to allow free movement after they joined the EU in 2004.

However, the issue is far more nuanced than before. Nine out of 10 people who describe themselves as racist want immigration curbs, yet seven out of 10 who say they are not racist want exactly the same.

Meanwhile, although greater numbers of people feel more strongly about immigration, the rate of racially motivated crimes is falling, according to figures gathered by the British Crime Survey.

In 2009/10, there were 55,134 incidents reported in England and Wales, not including those that were made to the British Transport Police. In 2010/11 the figure had fallen to 51,185. In 2011/12 it had declined again, to 47,678.

Farage denies racism

Equally, last week’s elections saw the demise of the British National Party; while the English Defence League, a younger version of the BNP, has failed to make the inroads it believed it was going to make a few years ago.

Ukip's Nigel Farage denies he is a racist, though he is prepared – as he did most spectacularly during the party's spring conference in Torquay in March – to issue dog whistles aplenty.

Then, he expressed discomfort about being on a train to Kent from London; saying that he was half-way home before he began to hear English spoken: “Do I feel uncomfortable about that? Yes, I do.”

However, even Farage does not want to turn the clock, saying that to even think about removing the immigrants already in Britain would be an “appalling thing to do” – though that opinion would come as news to some of his followers who want exactly that.

Farage’s rise and his talk of “not wanting to live next door to Romanians” has put the focus on Eastern Europeans, although the reality is that most racist attacks are primarily triggered by colour.

“White adults are the least likely to have been a victim and Asian (or Asian British) adults the most likely,” says the Institute of Race Relations, noting that blacks, or those of mixed parentage, are the next most likely to suffer.

For now, the statistics tell contradictory stories: that a significant percentage is becoming more racist than they, or their predecessors have been for decades, but equally, Britain as a whole has become more polite, or cautious about how it displays its opinions.

For years, it has not been socially acceptable to talk negatively about immigration.

Negative thoughts

Indeed, Labour’s failure to heed concerns of its working-class supporters during its years in power has helped to build up a well of discontent.

However, the sanction to express negative thoughts, that has been given on the back of Ukip’s rise, will create danger if it should offer a licence to those who would take direct action to express darker opinions on immigration.

Now living in Hastings, Tom O’Brien told a London-based Polish immigrants’ blog that he wrote the play after hearing locals in Waterford complaining about Poles “taking our effing jobs”.

Fifty years on from the days of “no dogs, no Irish, no blacks” in the windows of boarding houses in London and elsewhere, the wheel, he said, “had gone full circle”.