The Harehills riots and disorder, which started last Thursday in Leeds after social services removed several children from a Romani family, is a fine example of people projecting their biases onto complex social events.
We are more likely to find the roots of the Harehills disorders in the politics of Central Europe than on the Indian subcontinent
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage – no stranger to questionable takes on integration – labelled the events as a destructive manifestation of subcontinental politics in inner-city England. This is wide of the mark.
Harehills in Leeds is not Belgrave in Leicester, where trouble broke out in 2022 after an India–Pakistan Asia Cup cricket match. Some on social media platforms, such as X, leapt at the chance to blame the trouble on British Muslims. While my more forgiving side says this is somewhat understandable (Harehills has a significant number of British South Asian Muslims who have, in some cases, similar physical characteristics to Roma migrants), the more cynical view is that it demonstrated how a few are only too eager to unleash their anti-Muslim bigotry at the first opportunity.
The unrest in Harehills primarily involves Roma communities which many politicians and social commentators in Britain know relatively little knowledge about. There are around a quarter of a million Romani people living in the UK, a sizeable proportion being Eastern European Roma who migrated to the UK as the EU grew to incorporate much of Central and Eastern Europe. The vast majority are Christian (not Muslim), with Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox being the main established denominations.
Romani people who have migrated from other EU member-states to the UK have faced considerable levels of institutional discrimination and deep-rooted social stigmatisation in their countries of origin, places such as Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. In recent decades, they have sometimes found their communities walled off from the rest of society. In 2018, Matteo Salvini, who was then Italy’s interior minister, considered (in lieu of expelling them) compiling a list of all Roma people in his country. He said his department was investigating the ‘Roma question’.
Romani migrants in England have carried the trauma they have experienced in Europe to this country. This needs to be recognised, especially by those who both have a largely uncritical view of diversity in modern Britain and a romanticised idea of the EU. We are more likely to find the roots of the Harehills disorders in the politics of central Europe than on the Indian subcontinent. Leading figures on the right, such as Farage, would do well to avoid making their reckless forays into sensitive matters of integration.
It is entirely plausible that the social services had good reason to remove the Romani children from their family home. Those who are found to be guilty of any form of criminality in the unrest must face the full force of the law. Multiple arrests have been made, with 37-year-old Iustin Dobre being charged with arson and violent disorder. The greater worry, however, is the fact that the relevant public authorities appear to have been completely oblivious to the potential backlash from members of a tight-knit community – one characterised by its fiercely-held moral and cultural codes, and widely held anti-authority sentiments.
If integration continues to be ignored in British politics, events like the Harehills riots will become more common. We need moral political leadership.
