Is Britain Becoming A More Hateful Country? | Good Morning Britain

foreign officers have been called in to look at death threats sent to public figures from Neo-Nazi groups that has been banned in Britain the messages and letters threatened to kill them and their families and really worryingly the number of hate crime cases is rising rapidly so the latest figures show that they went up by just over a quarter in the year to 2022 that is the biggest rise in five years by far the most 70 percent were racially motivated crimes and the biggest increase was for crimes against transgender people at more than 50 percent on the previous year so is Britain becoming a more hateful hate-filled Nation joining us now is author lawyer and activist Dr Shola Moz shogbamamu and broadcaster India Willoughby who have been subjected to menacing letters and death threats like you won't really believe actually and also we can speak to Palms under a former met police chief superintendent who ran the hate crime unit I mean I want to come to both of you first of all because the examples of what you've experienced I know there's a limit to what you can reveal because it's in the hands of people who are investigating it but it it shocked me it shot both of us to the core showed us starting with you what have you experienced that you can tell us about I think to be perfectly honest receiving that letter was simply an escalation of what I already go through daily online I get a lot of racial abuse I get threats some of which I've reported to the police over the years but having the letter handed in hand delivered to my home was definitely an escalation so that's what happened then you and just just talk us through that well I can't give specificity no I know but there are not enough words to describe the emotions that I I was experiencing as I read a letter but you know the letter was delivered hasn't written it was delivered and as as the um the letter that I shared shows it is it was typed and as I read it I know that the the most prominent emotion I had was rage because how dare you how dare you try to you know attack me name my children my you know my husband but I also understood in that moment that this is an escalation of what already goes online and you know a lot of black voices like myself we experience the the what I'll call the lynching of our reputation of our persons or of our characters and this takes place all the time so that the language that's in the letter which shocked many people did not surprise me because I get all that language all the time but when they said we do not consider killing you murder we can you know we considered an execution and then go ahead and say you should go into hiding and I know that that is what they are trying to do they want to silence voices like mine it's not going to happen just terrific reading now for you and your family to have to go through it to explain it what to your children I can't imagine how difficult that was and it's an ongoing process for all of you uh India I mean I'm sure you were shocked by what scholar experience but equally you have faced similar in uh issues haven't you yeah absolutely and now Deco what you've just said there about um hate crime generally facing it every day that's become my normal life over the last three or four years and you're quoting the figures there of the rising hate crime and for me obviously that the trans crime that's quadrupled in four years and it's rocketed again 50 this this last year and it's just become so toxic it's horrible I feel like this government have put a Target on my back I belong to 0.2 percent of the population which is like literally nothing at all I feel hunted now every story that appears in the British media is about trans people being a threat to women and children which is ridiculous um and they're treating me as if I'm a criminal or or a disease and so when you when you have that rhetoric I just want to say Ben if you have that rhetoric a thousand stories per month on trans people exclusively hostile you're going to get a reaction because it's all very well having a civilized debate in a philosophical sense about you know women and trans people in a studio but that feeds down onto the street where you have really thuggish ignorant people who don't pick up on the sub subtleties I I think what Chad was saying and I know this is the case for you as well opening your social media each morning yeah you kind of get used to it I mean you come a little bit numb to it yeah not it's not a pleasant experience but you've had it before but the letter through the door I personally delivered a letter yeah that has threats on it it's something very different as well that feels far more menacing because the implication is they know exactly how to get well well the difference is like Shola sadly I've had death threats online before but they're normally from bob697 and you can brush them off and think it's just somebody saying something stupid um in a moment of anger but the differences with these letters there's obviously been a degree of effort and time and thought put into them they've both been hand delivered they're not template letters they're both very specific shoulders that in itself is the minds around the trans issue but I think the trans Community we just don't feel heard I mean obviously we're in this very much we're in this together now yeah but um you know like yesterday this story was covered about the letters I looked at a package on a on a national news um station and the package was two minutes 40 long and six seconds were devoted to the trans letter which I'm not detracting from either side because as I say we are both in it together and they are it's both abhorrent but the trans Community side of it we just feel it it's dismissed and not taken seriously there's definitely a common struggle here because we're talking about heat debt but you need people to understand that this issue around racism okay it's not because racism is on the rise no this is what systemic racism looks like in the United Kingdom it's just been recorded and filmed now it's being brought straight to your you know to your television and it's been camouflaged as freedom of speech I I remember the first time I go I got called race beta was a national television and I noticed the trend immediately online that people picked up on that because we have broadcasters how high profile names including TV networks yeah that that enable these kind of attacks against black voices like myself so when we come out and speak out against systemic racism when we speak the truth when we try to help people in understanding what the truth is that systemic racism is rooted in white supremacy and the ideology of whiteness this is how it works oh no Dr Shola hates white people um Dr Shola is anti-white really simply because I'm telling you what is there or they accuse us of stirring you know division I'm like how can I stir the vision when the division was right there and all I'm doing is pointing at it and explaining it to you see each time and I'm sure India feels the way the same each time I do a TV appearance so like one of my recent coverages was on The Tyree Nichols case the case of the five black you know U.S policeman beating now a black man to death and here I am explaining how this is rooted in systemic racism and white supremacist now ignorant people out there immediately just wanted to go but it's five black men people it's five black police officers who beat down black man in the presence of light Witnesses on live camera in the in the authority as police as though the only way they can accept that happening is if it was a white police officer doing it I'm not what does it what shocks me is that people were surprised that five black police officers could do that and when I stood there and explained what it was online he had all these high-profile people immediately taking that and using it to attack it goes on and on and on so um Pam you you ran the hate crime unit what did you see I mean these figures are shocking but you fear they could be worse I believe that the figures are actually worse than what that than what we're discussing now because not everybody reports it and it may start off with like minor name-calling a little push or a shove and people don't always go to the police with that and it's when that behavior escalates and as has been talked about here that behavior will escalate and that's when people will go to the police and actually report it but unfortunately even when you go to the police with the criminal justice system being broken as it is it can take between 18 months and two years to get a case to court which isn't acceptable and in that meantime those individuals will continue with that behavior and they'll continue and they do hide behind the social media and the anonymity it gives them but then they will progress to the more serious offenses which is why we're talking about it today I mean India made the point that she thinks the government hasn't done enough I mean in terms of trying to clamp down on this and trying to find a way to sort of to to to to to to break down what is happening and get it stopped do you think that they are taking these sorts of threats seriously do you think the government need to do more is it the police that don't have the resources to take them seriously man I'm sorry but the government it's part of the problem I'm sorry the language the toxicity and they are literally consciously creating this as a as an election these are their their voters base right they're base Builders these are who they're attracting that's my point so so I guess the the point department has worked on the police side of these things she's having to deal with that so that's why the sort of the question was for you I have to agree with what's been said here by the ladies because it is the government who have weaponized individuals there's been been a lack of investment in the criminal justice system so that you can't get people to court you can't convict them and the rhetoric is always against the victim and recently we have heard very senior government officials talking negatively about anybody of difference and when we talk about difference you know people who are racist homophobic who hate transgender people they don't have just one hate they hate everyone who is different and that's where the rhetoric comes well the home office has taught us that hate crime is a Scourge on communities across the country it does not reflect the values they're creating it I want my life back I just want my life back the toxicity yeah while the rising cases is la is largely uh driven by improvements in police recording these are serious crimes you may expect the police to fully investigate these hateful attacks and make sure the cowards who commit them feel the full force of the law one question do you think the threats are credible they're hateful they're horrific for you to have to live with but are they credible threats I do believe that these threats are credible because they have gone that one step further they've written letters they've hand delivered them they've researched where you live what your addresses are so I actually believe they are credible and they need to be taken very seriously yes and these particular threats that we got as letters are just an escalation of an existing problem they are credible whether it's from an anonymous account or somebody you know or the way it's been enabled but they also need to understand and I'm going to say this right now they need to understand there's a reason why voices like mine exist and I stand on the shoulders of greatness I stand on the shoulders of people who've gone before me and who have lost their lives in Liberty so I can say what they could not say I can do what they could not do I can be the dream that they want me to be so I'm not about to be silent or silenced by those who feel that one that I don't belong or that India does not belong for whatever reason they've created in their heads there is no way we're going to leave the society in the hands of those that want to see its regress and that is what is happening right now we're being we're regressing politically we're regressing in every facet of our society yes through hate as I said this is not something new right Supremacy the ideology of whiteness is the norm not the exception so people please wake the heck up and let's eradicate the problem unfortunately we're gonna have to leave it there palm thank you very much Indian Australia thank you for sharing what you've been through horrendous I'm so sorry that you have to go through it but you know it's great to get your thoughts on it and how that's not going to stop you from being important voices that you are and um good to speak to you too and to have that insight as well thanks very much

Channel: Good Morning Britain

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Id: qkafQsQCp9Q

Length: 13min 52sec (832 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 23 2023