RMT's Steve Hedley attacked by mob

[Bromley boy]

For what it's worth there's very good evidence that England losing at football leads to a spike in domestic violence incidents. This report from ABC Australia demonstrates:



I, like you, am a cynic. But the BBC report I linked above stated that "[the Home Office report] also noted a spike in hate crime around the time of the EU referendum". The Home Office's chart illustrates this well, look at that spike immediately after the referendum. There's plenty of anecdotal evidence from victims of hate crime that some attackers have referenced the referendum vote during the commission of their crimes.

Interesting to note the general upward trend.

No doubt attributable to the policies favoured by the musli-crunching remain camp over the last few decades, which have fomented much discontent and anger.

So who is really responsible for the backlash?!

 

[yorkie]

What is beyond doubt is that the hate crime spiked after the referendum. That's a fact.

Absolutely; and if anyone is in denial of that then I have to question what their motives are.

 

[Bromley boy]

My comment was sarcastic. Don't take it with any sincerity whatsoever.

Accept my apologies - I did not pick up on the subtlety

Likewise .

 

[Darandio]

No-one has suggested that all leave voters are far-right nutters who condone violence. So stop being ridiculous.

Post 4 seemed to say so, others agree that was what was meant.

 

[Teflon Lettuce]

Absolutely; and if anyone is in denial of that then I have to question what their motives are.

no-one here is in denial of that fact... but the original post went along the lines of "the vote to leave caused hate crime" as I said in an earlier post, while it may be true that there was a rise in hate crime, there is no evidence that, had the vote been to remain, there wouldn't have been a spike or rise in hate crime. That there was a spike in hate crime is an empirical fact whereas an assertion that the result of the referendum was the cause of that spike can only be opinion/ conjecture as we can never know what would have happened if the result had been different!

 

[Bromley boy]

My comment was sarcastic. Don't take it with any sincerity whatsoever.

Accept my apologies - I did not pick up on the subtlety

Likewise .

 

[Bromley boy]

Post 4 seemed to say so, others agree that was what was meant.

It 100% did.

 

[farleigh]

Absolutely; and if anyone is in denial of that then I have to question what their motives are.

I don't think anybody has denied it. Questioning the evidence for it is a different matter. It is somewhat worrying if we have to accept the 'correct' view without being entitled to look critically at the evidence.

You can question my motives if you like, but I am simply stating that the graph presented does not prove causality. If the rise started at the point of the referendum then that would be strong evidence but not proof.

I have a lot of respect for you Yorkie, but hope that you would not be offended if I questioned anybody's motives for accepting as fact something for which no real evidence is presented.

 

[transmanche]

Good stats but note in each case that the crime was already on the increase before the incident which nullifies your assertion.[...]I am not saying the spike did not occur, rather that it is impossible to attribute it to the vote.

Well the massive spike immediately after the referendum must surely be a clue?

Yes, there was already an upward trend in reported hate crime. Some of that will be down to increased reporting of such crimes to the police. But in the years leading up to the referendum, the jingoistic Daily Mail headlines, the increased activities of the EDL and similar organisations plus the vilification of immigrants peddled by some of those on the right are very likely to have been the inspiration for that. As stated before (and as the Home Office seems to concede) the result has emboldened those who would commit such crimes to increase those attacks.

Do you remember the "Leave the EU. No More Polish Vermin." cards distributed in Huntingdon the day after the referendum? Surely no coincidence.

As for people referencing the referendum as they make an attack, I defer to you as I have seen no evidence of this.

I've only seen it as anecdotal evidence reported in individual cases. I have no idea how widespread it is.

 

[Teflon Lettuce]

Well the massive spike immediately after the referendum must surely be a clue?

It's a clue, yes, but it is not empirical evidence that the vote to leave the EU was the cause... the only way to prove the link would be to go to a parallel universe where we voted to remain and see what the result on levels of hate crime were in that parallel universe. As we have yet to find a way of doing so the evidence can only suggest a link but can never prove a link

 

[yorkie]

I have a lot of respect for you Yorkie, but hope that you would not be offended if I questioned anybody's motives for accepting as fact something for which no real evidence is presented.

It's so blindingly obvious; I may as well as for evidence of any number of equally obvious things, for which there is overwhelming evidence.

Here is just some articles, out of many:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38976087

A majority of police forces in England and Wales saw record levels of hate crimes in the first full three months following the EU referendum, according to new analysis.

More than 14,000 hate crimes were recorded between July and September.

In 10 forces the number of suspected hate crimes increased by more than 50%, compared to the previous three months.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/magazine-41584532/the-truth-about-hate-crime-and-brexit

After the Brexit vote, there was a spike in race hate crimes in England and Wales.

Livvy Haydock meets Kamil, who was attacked because he's Polish, and a group of men who say they have attacked immigrants living in the UK.

That video is rather chilling.


https://www.tes.com/news/exclusive-school-hate-crimes-spike-following-brexit-and-trump-votes

Schools in England experienced significant spikes in “hate crimes” and “hate incidents” around the time of the Brexit vote and the election of US president Donald Trump, a Tes investigation has found.

Since the Brexit vote, I've also witnessed children refer to the word 'immigrant' in a highly negative/derogatory way and I have had to explain to them what the word actually means. The children have not come up with this themselves; they have picked it up from adults and the media. That can't be right, surely?

 

[farleigh]

Fair enough TM - I am probably being too demanding.

There is a subtle difference though between saying there was an increase in hate crime reported and that this increase in reports was due to the referendum.

You do have to be quite analytical when looking for cause and it is likely that the rise was due to more than one factor. We are very keen in this country in simplifying things incorrectly to say that event A implies event B and only event A implies event B. Real life is far more complex and subtle.

 

[Teflon Lettuce]

It's so blindingly obvious; I may as well as for evidence of any number of equally obvious things, for which there is overwhelming evidence.

Here is just some articles, out of many:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38976087


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/magazine-41584532/the-truth-about-hate-crime-and-brexit

That video is rather chilling.

but again I ask... where is the evidence that levels of hate crime would've been lower had the referendum vote been different? until you can give empirical evidence of that, then any "link" between the Brexit vote and levels of hate crime can only be conjecture and opinion!

 

[farleigh]

Yorkie - I think you may have missed my point.

There was a referendum.
There was a rise in reported hate crimes.

For many people this means that all new hate crimes are due to the referendum. This is incorrect.

 

[yorkie]

Yorkie - I think you may have missed my point.

There was a referendum.
There was a rise in reported hate crimes.

For many people this means that all new hate crimes are due to the referendum. This is incorrect.

Who claims that? I'd be surprised if anyone claimed that, let alone "many people"; I think you have made that up!

It's pretty obvious that a major cause of the rise of hate crimes is due to the referendum.

 

[Teflon Lettuce]

Who claims that? I'd be surprised if anyone claimed that, let alone "many people"; I think you have made that up!

It's pretty obvious that a major cause of the rise of hate crimes is due to the referendum.

sorry, but there is no empirical evidence for that assertion. Yes there has been a referendum. Yes there has been a rise in hate crime. There is no way of proving that the one lead to the other... that's like saying we wouldn't have gone to war in Iraq/ Afghanistan if we'd had a Conservative/ Liberal/ Monster Raving Loony government at the time!

In fact it could be argued that the vote to leave the EU actually limited the rise in hate crime... can you imagine what the reaction of the far right would have been if the vote had been to remain, with the attendant risk of being forced by the EU to accept thousands of extra migrants/ refugees.

It could equally be argued that it was Chancellor Merkel's announcement to allow unlimited migrants into Germany and the ensuing crisis that caused the referendum outcome that we got!

 

[AlterEgo]

Well the massive spike immediately after the referendum must surely be a clue?

Yes, there was already an upward trend in reported hate crime. Some of that will be down to increased reporting of such crimes to the police. But in the years leading up to the referendum, the jingoistic Daily Mail headlines, the increased activities of the EDL and similar organisations plus the vilification of immigrants peddled by some of those on the right are very likely to have been the inspiration for that. As stated before (and as the Home Office seems to concede) the result has emboldened those who would commit such crimes to increase those attacks.

Do you remember the "Leave the EU. No More Polish Vermin." cards distributed in Huntingdon the day after the referendum? Surely no coincidence.

I've only seen it as anecdotal evidence reported in individual cases. I have no idea how widespread it is.

A rise in reported crime doesn’t mean there’s more crime. It just means more is reported. This is Statistics 101.

 

[yorkie]

A rise in reported crime doesn’t mean there’s more crime. It just means more is reported. This is Statistics 101.

There is no way that the increase can be explained due to a change in reporting methods around the same time.

http://time.com/4985332/hate-crime-uk-2017/

The vote to leave the E.U. in 2016 and better recording methods attributed to the rise, the government said. “The increase over the last year is thought to reflect both a genuine rise in hate crime around the time of the E.U. referendum” Britain’s Home Office, or interior department, said in a statement....

I've seen real changes in the way some impressionable children behave and what they say, since the referendum campaign and result, and that is nothing to do with any 'methods' as it is based on actual observations of changed behaviour.

It's pretty obviously an undeniable fact that the Bexit vote caused an increase in hate crime.

 

[AlterEgo]

There is no way that the increase can be explained due to a change in reporting methods around the same time.

But it could mean that, after the referendum, people who were the victims of hate crime felt fearful and therefore more duty bound to report it, or more empowered, or any number of things. We simply don’t know.

A spike in sexual assault cases might not mean there are more people being assaulted, but rather that they are reporting it when it happens more often.

 

[Mutant Lemming]

Many 'hate' crimes never used to be reported as such so the rise may well be down to different methods of reporting and a greater encouragement to report a crime as a hate crime.

 

[yorkie]

Many 'hate' crimes never used to be reported as such so the rise may well be down to different methods of reporting and a greater encouragement to report a crime as a hate crime.

So you are denying the evidence presented in, for example, this video, and my own observations?

Even the racists in that video admit there has been a rise since the Brexit vote, so I am unsure why this is being denied? I am not sure what the motive for such a denial is?

 

[Starmill]

The evidence for a causal link between a shift in behavior when it comes to racial discrimination and result of the EU referendum is not proven, but it is convincing. What I have seen myself and from people I know, in addition to government statistics, is consistent with the hypothesis that the EU referendum provoked a worsening of behavior from some quarters. I do not see how this can possibly be denied.

Whether this incident was specifically linked to any of this I cannot say. RMT's political viewpoints always seem very ill-informed and unrealistic to my mind - but this is a totally separate thing to the perpetration of violence against individuals associated with them.

 

[Teflon Lettuce]

So you are denying the evidence presented in, for example, this video, and my own observations?

Even the racists in that video admit there has been a rise since the Brexit vote, so I am unsure why this is being denied? I am not sure what the motive for such a denial is?

I think I'll give up at this point... no-one is denying that there has been an increase in hate crime since Brexit... however there is no empirical evidence that Brexit caused this rise... even in the post you quoted above it states "The vote to leave the E.U. in 2016 and better recording methods attributed to the rise, the government said. “The increase over the last year is thought to reflect both a genuine rise in hate crime around the time of the E.U. referendum” Britain’s Home Office, or interior department, said in a statement...."

 

[The 39 Steps]

Mr Hedley has had some interesting coverage in The Private Eye over the years.

 

[Esker-pades]

Mr Hedley has had some interesting coverage in The Private Eye over the years.

Most people have. That's what makes Private Eye so good.

 

[AlterEgo]

So you are denying the evidence presented in, for example, this video, and my own observations?

Even the racists in that video admit there has been a rise since the Brexit vote, so I am unsure why this is being denied? I am not sure what the motive for such a denial is?

The biggest rise in hate crime was against disabled people and transgender people, yet it doesn’t seem likely this happened because of the referendum. There are a myriad of disagreeing sources of various political flavours which discussed the spike at the time, and there is no prevailing conclusion.

Edit: misattributed quote.

 

[Starmill]

there is no empirical evidence that Brexit caused this rise

This is wrong. There is conclusive evidence that there was a rise in hate crimes during the EU referendum; there is at least some evidence that they were causally linked.

The Home Office suggest this in their report:

The EU referendum campaign began on Friday 15 April 2016, with the result announced on Friday 24 June, the day after the referendum. Around this time there was a clear spike in hate crime (see Figure 2.2). As stated in the introduction, offences with a xenophobic element (such as graffiti targeting certain nationalities) can be recorded as race hate crimes by the police. Anecdotal evidence suggests that there was an increase in these types of offences around the time of the EU Referendum.

https://assets.publishing.service.g...data/file/652136/hate-crime-1617-hosb1717.pdf

This is far from conclusive, and you can choose to discount it or refute it if you wish, but it's still wrong to say it doesn't exist. Crucially, no other viable hypotheses have been made about what caused this rise in crime.

It's very, very difficult to determine what is actually driving crime in one way or the other. I have to wonder why some people are upset about this now and not in all of the other cases where it's uncertain why crime is changing.

 

[Teflon Lettuce]

This is wrong. There is conclusive evidence that there was a rise in hate crimes during the EU referendum; there is at least some evidence that they were causally linked.

The Home Office suggest this in their report:


https://assets.publishing.service.g...data/file/652136/hate-crime-1617-hosb1717.pdf

This is far from conclusive, and you can choose to discount it or refute it if you wish, but it's still wrong to say it doesn't exist. Crucially, no other viable hypotheses have been made about what caused this rise in crime.

It's very, very difficult to determine what is actually driving crime in one way or the other. I have to wonder why some people are upset about this now and not in all of the other cases where it's uncertain why crime is changing.

yes... the Home office suggest it... they say " anecdotal evidence suggests" this is not empirical evidence nor does it prove a cause/ effect or link! As I said up thread, who's to say that the vote to leave didn't limit the spike in hate crimes? after all I'm sure the far right thugs that carry out these sort of attacks would have felt they had no other course of action left to them.... but of course I can't prove that would be the case, it would be just an opinion of mine... just like no-one can prove that Brexit caused the spike in hate crimes... only put forward evidence that suggests it to be so!

That's the problem with so much of debate in this country... too much opinion and statistics argued as empirical fact!

 

[gingerheid]

I'm not sure how much news of this has spread among union members but it doesn't seem to be something the mainstream media are bothering with

Infers knowledge most likely to be passed by word of mouth. Casts doubt on media.

And then posts two links from "mainstream media".

Massive

 

[farleigh]

Infers knowledge most likely to be passed by word of mouth. Casts doubt on media.

And then posts two links from "mainstream media".

Massive

I will retire at this point

Who claims that? I'd be surprised if anyone claimed that, let alone "many people"; I think you have made that up!

It's pretty obvious that a major cause of the rise of hate crimes is due to the referendum.

OK Yorkie - let's agree to disagree.

I have tried to assert that statistics can be manipulated, but have not got that point across to you.
You have relied on the argument that 'it's pretty obvious'. That's not a strong argument to me as it lacks rigour - I could say that it is 'pretty obvious' that you are wrong and that would hold as much water.

To me it could be 'pretty obvious' but not conclusive that the election of Macron lead to the rise in hate crime. I have no evidence whatsoever but - hey - it's pretty obvious.

Good debate though.