Angry White People: Coming Face-to-face with the British Far-Right is a 2016 book written by Taiwanese-born journalist and writer Hsiao-Hung Pai and published by Zed Books. The book examines racism and far-right views among the white working class in Britain, with a special emphasis on the English Defence League (EDL). Its foreword was written by British poet Benjamin Zephaniah. [1]
In the book, Pai interviews EDL leader Tommy Robinson in his hometown of Luton. She finds his views on race to be similar to those expressed by mainstream right-wing figures in Britain, rather than the overt racism of the British National Party. [1] Pai expresses the view that white working class Britons face economic issues and contempt from Britain's political elite. The book chronicles the history of the EDL, interviewing its members and members of opposing groups such as Unite Against Fascism. [1]
Hassan Mahamdallie of The Independent praised how Pai was able to empathise with the hardships of some white working class members of the EDL without sympathising with their political aims. He called the book an "enlightening, thoughtful and intelligent study". [1] In the Morning Star, Paul Simon praised an "almost ethnographic level of detail" in documenting how working class Britons drifted towards the EDL. [2] Conversely, John Lloyd of the Financial Times found the book unbalanced, as it quoted figures from the organisation Cage while strongly criticising the Quilliam think tank. [3]
Musa Okwonga of the New Statesman found the book timely for its release during the 2015 European migrant crisis and reaction by anti-migration groups such as Pegida in Germany. [4] Lloyd instead pointed to the recent 2016 Brussels bombings and found it unfortunate that Pai had relied on sources by Arun Kundnani, who proposes that Western fear of Islamic terrorism is exaggerated. [3] Rod Liddle wrote a scathing review in The Spectator Australia , calling the book "hideously mistaken on almost every page". [5]
David Lindon Lammy is a British politician who has served as Foreign Secretary since July 2024. A member of the Labour Party, he has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Tottenham since 2000. Lammy previously held various junior ministerial positions under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown between 2002 and 2010.
Rod Liddle is an English journalist, and an associate editor of The Spectator. He was an editor of BBC Radio 4's Today programme. His published works include Too Beautiful for You (2003), Love Will Destroy Everything (2007), The Best of Liddle Britain and the semi-autobiographical Selfish Whining Monkeys (2014). He has presented television programmes, including The New Fundamentalists, The Trouble with Atheism, and Immigration Is A Time Bomb.
Far-right politics are a recurring phenomenon in the United Kingdom since the early 20th century, with the formation of Nazi, fascist, antisemitic, and Islamophobic movements. One of the earliest examples of fascism in the UK can be found as early as 1923 with the formation of British Fascisti by Rotha Lintorn-Orman. It went on to acquire more explicitly racial connotations, being dominated in the 1960s and 1970s by self-proclaimed white nationalist organisations that opposed non-white and Asian immigration. The idea stems from belief of white supremacy, the belief that white people are superior to all other races and should therefore dominate society. Examples of such groups in the UK are the National Front (NF), the British Movement (BM) and British National Party (BNP), or the British Union of Fascists (BUF). Since the 1980s, the term has mainly been used to describe those groups, such as the English Defence League, who express the wish to preserve what they perceive to be British culture, and those who campaign against the presence of non-indigenous ethnic minorities.
Fraser Andrew Nelson is a British political journalist who was editor of The Spectator magazine from 2009 to 2024.
Douglas Murray is a British neoconservative political commentator, cultural critic, and journalist. He founded the Centre for Social Cohesion in 2007, which became part of the Henry Jackson Society, where he was associate director from 2011 to 2018.
Maajid Usman Nawaz is a British activist and former radio presenter. He was the founding chairman of the think tank Quilliam. Until January 2022, he was the host of an LBC radio show on Saturdays and Sundays. Born in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, to a British Pakistani family, Nawaz is a former member of the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. His membership led to his December 2001 arrest in Egypt, where he remained imprisoned until 2006. While there, he read books about human rights and made contact with Amnesty International who adopted him as a prisoner of conscience. He left Hizb-ut-Tahrir in 2007, renounced his Islamist past, and called for a secular Islam. Later, Nawaz co-founded Quilliam with former Islamists, including Ed Husain.
Quilliam was a British think tank co-founded in 2008 by Maajid Nawaz that focused on counter-extremism, specifically against Islamism, which it argued represents a desire to impose a given interpretation of Islam on society. Founded as The Quilliam Foundation and based in London, it claimed to lobby government and public institutions for more nuanced policies regarding Islam and on the need for greater democracy in the Muslim world whilst empowering "moderate Muslim" voices. The organisation opposed any Islamist ideology and championed freedom of expression. The critique of Islamist ideology by its founders―Nawaz, Rashad Zaman Ali and Ed Husain―was based, in part, on their personal experiences. Quilliam went into liquidation in 2021.
Hsiao-Hung Pai is a London-based journalist and writer. Her book Chinese Whispers: The True Story Behind Britain's Hidden Army of Labour was short-listed for the 2009 Orwell Prize and her Scattered Sand:The Story of China's Rural Migrants won the Bread and Roses Award in 2013.
The English Defence League (EDL) was a far-right, Islamophobic organisation active in England from 2009 until the mid-late 2010s. A social movement and pressure group that employed street demonstrations as its main tactic, the EDL presented itself as a single-issue movement opposed to Islamism and Islamic extremism, although its rhetoric and actions targeted Islam and Muslims more widely.
Matthew James Goodwin is a British political scientist, political commentator and former academic recognised for his research on populism and right-wing movements.
The relationship between race and crime in the United Kingdom is the subject of academic studies, government surveys, media coverage, and public concern. Under the Criminal Justice Act 1991, section 95, the government collects annual statistics based on race and crime.
Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson, is a British anti-Islam campaigner and one of the UK's most prominent far-right activists. Since 28 October 2024, he has been serving an 18-month prison sentence for contempt of court.
Racism in the United Kingdom has a long history and includes structural discrimination and hostile attitudes against various ethnic minorities. The extent and the targets have varied over time. It has resulted in cases of discrimination, riots and racially motivated murders.
Unite Against Fascism (UAF) is a British anti-fascist group.
Islamophobia in the United Kingdom refers to a set of discourses, behaviours and structures which express feelings of hatred, anxiety, fear, hostility and rejection towards Islam or Muslims in the United Kingdom. Islamophobia can manifest itself in a wide range of ways; including, discrimination in the workforce, negative coverage in the media, and violence against Muslims.
Jack Andrew Renshaw is a British convicted child sex offender, terrorist and former spokesperson for the neo-Nazi organisation National Action. He was an economics and politics student at Manchester Metropolitan University and an organiser for the British National Party (BNP) youth wing, BNP Youth. On 12 June 2018, Renshaw pleaded guilty to preparing an act of terrorism, with the intention of killing the Labour MP Rosie Cooper, and to making a threat to murder a police officer.
Opposition to the English Defence League consists of actions taken against the English Defence League, a far-right, Islamophobic organisation in the United Kingdom.
The size of the EDL movement has been difficult to gauge. Allen noted that within a year and a half of the group's formation it had "grown substantially" but that it is "extremely difficult to know exactly how big or how well supported the EDL is." The organisation has no official system of membership, or formal means of joining, and thus no membership list. In 2011, Bartlett and Littler estimated that between 25,000 and 35,000 people were active members in the EDL movement. They believed that about half of these had attended demonstrations and that the highest concentration was in the Greater London area. On the basis of her research with the group, Pilkington suggested that there was a "high turnover in the movement", while Winlow, Hall, and Treadwell observed that members "drift in and out of its activities". The internet hacktivist group Anonymous has published personal details of EDL members as part of a campaign against the group.
The Ideology of the English Defence League comprises the beliefs of the English Defence League, a far-right, Islamophobic organisation in the United Kingdom.
Tomiwa Owolade is a Nigerian-born British journalist and author based in London, England.