The Simple Way you show solidarity with our foreign born population

One of the ugliest side effects of the UK's decision to leave the EU last week has been a sharp increase in reported hate crimes.Vote Leave's campaign was tainted by accusations of racist dog-whistling: a poster unveiled by Ukip featuring an edited photograph of refugees came under particularly heavy criticism for its likeness to Nazi propaganda.

And sadly, as Tory MP Simon Hoare put it in the Commons yesterday, a "racism genie" appears to have been let out of the bottle as a consequence.

The National Police Chiefs' Council said on Monday there had been a 57 per cent rise in reports to an online hate crime reporting site between Thursday and Sunday compared to a month ago.

The majority of attacks appear to be aimed at immigrants, or people perceived to be immigrants, and are along the lines of "We voted Leave, you're going home".

The Polish Social and Cultural Association in West London was painted with graffiti calling on Poles to leave the UK. June 27, 2016

Like many people, Allison, an American woman living in London, told indy100 she was dismayed by the outpouring of racist abuse following the Leave vote. But she's also come up with a clever way to tackle it.

She's started a new campaign asking people to wear an empty safety pin as a badge to symbolise solidarity against racism - and let any potential targets know that the wearer is a friendly face.
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Allison said:
It's simple because you don't have to go out and buy it, there's no language or political slogans involved. It's just a little signal that shows people facing hate crimes that they're not alone and their right to be in the UK is supported.

She said the idea came to her watching the Euros in the pub with her husband this weekend.
I'm always having to remind people I'm an immigrant. You know, I'm white and speak English as a first language so I get a pass. They say 'oh you don't count, you're not the kind of person we're talking about'.

The literal 'safety' pin is inspired by the 'I'll ride with you' campaign against Islamophobia in Australia following the Sydney cafe shootings in 2014..

The goal is that anyone targeted by abuse, including British people of colour, can take some comfort from the idea, she added.
Thousands of people have gotten on board with ‪#‎safetypin‬ so far, and Allison hopes that a real-world effect is starting to trickle through - but raising awareness is key.

The first step is just getting it out in the open. The more people you start a conversation with, the easier it is to combat violence and abuse.

Allison has contacted community centres such as mosques to let them know about the plan and is trying to get some big names to help - so far, Nadiya Hussein of the Great British Bake Off has provided a signal boost with a retweet to her 95,000 followers.
"Thousands of people who voted both ways have been horrified by [the attacks]," she said. "Regular people need to know that they can do something small about it."

If you are a victim of or witness hate speech, remember you can:

Challenge it, both on the street and online

Use your phone to take photos or video as evidence

Check the victim is OK

Report it to the police

“We, at the height, are ready to decline ...Johnson. Gove and Vanity Fair.....

Its been a week since Brexit, and my oh my the beasts are beginning to fight. There is a contest amongst the Brexiteers on who can be hardest on the EU, harder still on immigration and harder on tolerance.

The politic s of the UK is in melt down its obvious what is happening. Yet no one has mentioned the comments by Aaron Banks that Nigel Farage has had had he his day. Aaron Banks has funded UKIP , funded the leave campaign and I detect in him a realisation that Farage is not the man to take UKIP to the next stage. We are seeing the emergence of a new hard right faction. I see the clever young right wing men lurking behind the unthinking racism they have promoted. I see them manipulating peoples fear and anxieties. I have seen them with their occasional comments on Facebook posts on Tweets, on blogs they know what they want , less workers rights, the denial of the reality of climate change. It interesting that half of those who voted to leave deny that humans have anything to do with climate change. I dee the way things are going.......

The decision to leave the EU was a severe defeat for the left, for tolerance and for an inclusive outlook. Since last Thursday people who do not look white are being increasingly told to go home , are abused in the street, the tone on Facebook has become bitter, full of contempt for the left. Prominent “lefties2 like myself have been exposed to a campaign of bullying, mocking and disrespect.

Then I remember and I am old enough to remember the late 70s.it was as it is now. A young Michael Gove active in the Federation of Conservative Students had links with the “Hang Nelson Mandela2 campaign. This organisation was so right wing that even Norman Tebbit as party chairman was forced to close them down. Now Gove is a candidate for Primeminister. You could imagine the horrors of a Conservative, UKIP, DUP coalition.

As for the left and the Gramsci an crisis of the left we know that 60,00o people have joined the Labour party. We know that Angela Eagle registered her angela4leader domain last week. A long time before her crocodile tears. A friend of mine campaigning for remain heard two young “moderate” Labour activists say “ Stephen Kinnock says that if there is a leave vote there will be a coup in the Party. Its been long planned and long thought out. The Parliamentary Labour party talk about reconnecting with its base . What they really mean is that they wish tone down the anti-immigration rhetoric, make it acceptable rather than to take it on. They dont want to really campaign to show the real reason and causes of it. They have forgotten what true Socialism is and that it is the job of political parties on the left to lead, educate and campaign. Read your Philosophy Angela Eagle.

I think we are about to see a massed break out of the Parliamentary Labour Party. I noticed a poll today giving Corbyn a 3% in the Leadership election. I think the Left is about to undergo a massive realignment. We are seeing a SDP mark2 moment. In Italy in the last quarter of the 20^th century in Italy both the Eurocommunist and the Christian Democrats imploded. Its about to happen here.

Boris Johnson quoted Brutus from Shakespeare`s Julius Caesar

“There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

On such a full sea are we now afloat,

And we must take the current when it serves

Or lose our ventures.”

He missed out on the previous line “We, at the height, are ready to decline” And tolerance, respect, and an outward looking country are in decline. But Boris Johnson is a lousy intellectual and misses so much.

I remember Michael Gove saying in an interview that “Vanity Fair2 By Thackery is his favourite novel . It is a book about a bloated plutocratic Britain. Its main character Becky Sharpe is an empty headed , unthinking individual who gets what she wants by trampling over others, she is only interested in outside things and lacks any real belief or concerns. Rather apt is it not?