Violent
protests on Saturday were painfully familiar and the problem could increase as anti-immigrant rhetoric continues
Twenty years ago this week, more than 1,000
England supporters were arrested and deported for fighting and disorderly behaviour at Euro 2000. The Guardian, which reported they had attacked French,
Turkish and North African supporters in
Brussels before scrapping with Germans and Turks in Charleroi, called it a “shameful new low”. In truth it felt merely like a variation on a decades-old theme. Same ultra violence and rabid nationalism, different location.
Afterwards, as politicians began the rush to condemn, the
Labour peer Roy Hattersley uttered a stark truth. Those in power – and parts of the media – were also to blame. “Football provides the opportunity for warp-minded chauvinists to demonstrate their brutal contempt for foreigners – a contempt which is often encouraged by politicians and journalists,” he wrote. “We need a change in culture at least as much as we need a change in the law.” That call, as the events in central
London on Saturday reminded us, remains urgent.