11 June 2026: From our network member organisation Positive Action in Housing: Statement in response to the recent far right attacks
We condemn the shameful scenes in Glasgow on Tuesday night when people of colour were randomly, physically attacked by gangs of masked men dressed in black, meting out collective punishment and bringing racist pogroms to our streets.
Reform UK and Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain will not condemn these racist gangs, you can be sure.
Instead of focusing on the crime, they capitalise on those crimes committed by people of colour, immigrants or Muslims. That’s their specialism – targeting racial minorities.
That is racism and it distracts ordinary people from seeing who is really draining the wealth of our society and destroying public services.
For decades now, every single day has felt like collective punishment for those of us who are minorities, Muslims or migrants. It has normal for us to fear the headlines.
Every day, on hate-filled front pages, entire communities can be branded guilty of one crime or another. It is open season for race-baiting. We feel it.
Racists are platformed on news channels. Some news channels have themselves become right-wing platforms.
There was a time when reputable media understood that you do not give oxygen to fascism.
What we are witnessing is not happening in a vacuum. Genocide scholars have long warned that mass atrocities begin not with killing, but with classification, scapegoating, dehumanisation and polarisation. We are at stage 5 or 6 of that continuum.
The first step is dividing society into “us” and “them”, followed by the collective blaming of entire communities for the actions of individuals.
When people are encouraged to view their neighbours as suspects, discrimination and violence become easier to justify.
The far right attacks we saw in Glasgow did not emerge from nowhere. They are the predictable consequence of decades of rhetoric that portrays people of colour as a problem to be feared rather than fellow human beings entitled to the same dignity, rights and protection as everyone else.
It is time for good people to reveal themselves and speak up against this vile racism and stamp it out from public discourse, once and for all.
Robina Qureshi, CEO
Positive Action in Housing