What I Learnt Mixing With And Talking To Far Right Football Lads
Keir Starmer thinks he can stop the sort of rioting we've seen this week by using soccer-style banning orders. He needs to look at the deeper problems behind social disorder
There’s not much a Prime Minister can do in the immediate aftermath of an unexpected bout of social disorder. Keir Starmer could only give the illusion of strength in response to the rioting that followed the Southport murders.
He promised a new “national capacity” for the police to combat violence. The vagueness of the phrase and the examples of how it might work suggest this is a policy initiative that has not been fleshed out. Despite the ugliness of the past week, the potential for more restrictions on protest is concerning.
Starmer spouted the usual cliches: “mindless minority,” “gang of thugs,” and, the timeless classic, treat them like “football hooligans.”
The Prime Minster wants football-style banning orders imposed on individuals “to stop people travelling, identify and prevent their patterns of behaviour.” That is hardly the answer.
It is worth exploring the relationship between the far right and football hooliganism, however. There is much misunderstanding about both subjects.
The first attempts by extremist groups to harness football fans – at least in my experience – came in the second half of the 1970s when the National Front and British Movement made a concerted effort to canvas outside grounds. They had limited success. The support they gained was mostly of the loosest kind. Few people became card-carrying members of these organisations even though significant numbers at clubs like Chelsea agreed with the racist attitudes and were broadly in favour of bigotry and white supremacy.
The right-wing factions misunderstood hooliganism. Like the media and the authorities, they imagined it to be at least semi-organised. The reality was that most football violence was simply the result of putting groups of working-class men in confrontational situations with alcohol as a catalyst.
Despite the mythology of the Inter City Firms and Service Crews of the world, hooliganism was “organised” only in the loosest sense – something it has in common with the recent protests. That is one of the reasons it was so difficult to police.
There have been many attempts to formalise the relationship between football thugs and the far right. Casuals United briefly made headlines in the late 2000s. This offshoot of the English Defence League was formed in Luton – it’s worth remembering that Stephen Yaxley-Lennon began his life in public disorder as a Luton Town hooligan, even stealing his nom de guerre, Tommy Robinson, from a more senior member of their Men In Gear firm.
A decade on, the Football Lads Alliance tried to set themselves up as the footsoldiers of Brexit. It was hard to take them seriously. A schism occurred when one of the leaders disappeared with the kitty and the fallout from the row was a new entity: the Democratic Football Lads Alliance. Hilarious.
Still, what they stood for was anything but funny. And more serious people were lurking in the background.
“People mock the right but they are slick and have a professional approach,” Les Crang, an academic who studied these and similar groups, told me. Behind the dumb-as-a-stump figureheads like Robinson there are agile thinkers and dark money. These shadowy figures excel at black propaganda.
One of the things that galvanised the rioting in Southport and beyond was a social media post that suggested the suspect/killer was fresh off a small boat and had a Muslim name.
By the time it was established that ‘Ali Al-Shakati' was a figment of a Russian’s imagination, anger had spread like wildfire and police vehicles were aflame. All the usual suspects – Robinson, Andrew Tate, Katie Hopkins and the rest of the useless idiots – stoked the fury by amplifying the misinformation.
There’s nothing wrong with being furious about mass stabbings and the murder of three young girls. We should be raging. The direction of that anger is important, though. The most shocking British mass murder of my lifetime was when Thomas Hamilton shot dead 16 five- and six-year-olds and their teacher in Dunblane in 1996. The fury was focused on the perpetrator and gun laws. White murderers don’t spark pogroms.
The problem for Starmer and the authorities is that the perceived leadership of the far right are the most easily replaceable and facile sort of figureheads. The darker forces attempting to destablise British society are aware that there are easy buttons to be pushed.
Before the pandemic, I spent a considerable amount of time speaking to and investigating the right-wing mood among football fans. The anger in places like Mansfield and Stoke was palpable but unfocused. A decade of austerity had bitten hard. Five years on, it’s even worse. But what was more apparent was the sense of cultural dislocation in these towns. To comprehend football’s place in these societies, you need to understand the wider picture.
Mark Watson, who grew up in Mansfield, talked me through it. Watson is anything but right wing but understands the forces that drive people. Coal and hosiery were the area’s main industries and its brewery was famous for Mansfield Bitter. Watson spoke about growing up there. “Why wouldn’t you be proud to live in a town that not only powered the country through coal, but clothed its women,” he said. “When you had a pint, it had the place’s name on it. It was like a Superhero town.”
Then, in the 1990s, everything changed. “There was almost a tsunami of identity-wiping acts over a couple of decades,” Watson said. “The pits closed, the hosiery factories closed when it was cheaper to import from abroad and the brewery shut.” Only the football club, Mansfield Town, remained, and that was touch and go.
By the time the credit crunch hit 16 years ago most of the old certainties had already been stripped away. Austerity has just piled on the indignities.
This series of events was replicated across the country. Even individuals who are doing well economically are wrapped up in this sense of loss. Football remains a touchstone, a link with the past.
Capitalism and neo-liberalism nearly collapsed during the 2008 financial crisis. It’s incredible to imagine that just half a decade earlier the west felt confident enough to destabilise large swathes of the middle east (and continued the dangerous work in Libya afterwards). The demonisation of Islam and a series of migrant crises gave disreputable politicians the opportunity to deflect from their own failures and create the illusion that the United Kingdon is under siege. The internet has given us unprecedented access to information but more than ever people form their opinions on “vibes.” Austerity is the reason you can’t get a doctor’s appointment. It just feels like an asylum seeker jumped the queue. The disease is the spread of misinformation. The street fighting is merely a symptom.
The lesson Starmer should take from football violence is that the authorities could not stop it. Yes, there were a few ringleaders and repeat offenders but many of those involved in the toing and froing on the terraces and streets were acting on a whim, caught up in the moment.
Most of the characters expressing their wrath by attacking the police and mosques have no deep affiliation with fascism. The despicable murders in Southport were a spark on tinder that has been decades in the making. The culture wars are designed to bring the worst aspects of our personality to the forefront. It’s taken a lot of work to get here, though. In general, most people can’t be arsed. Especially if life is going well for them and those around them.
Hooliganism declined because of social changes. Britain became richer in the second half of the 1980s and the second summer of love in 1987 reflected a change in youth culture.
People are drawn to right-wing politics in times of economic trouble. For the best part of half a century, wealth has been transferred from the poorest to the richest. Reverse that and much of the anger would dissipate. The big fear is that Starmer will make it worse.