Sheffield councillor speaks out about racism directed at him and colleagues on social media
A Sheffield councillor says that there has been a recent “sharp rise” in online racist comments directed to himself and colleagues.
Minesh Parekh, a Labour and Cooperative member of Sheffield City Council for Crookes and Crosspool ward, said: “I have been a councillor just over three years.
“Even in that time I have seen a sharp rise in social media only being a space for racism and hostility.”
Coun Parekh said that whenever minority ethnic councillors are mentioned on local news websites and their Facebook pages or if their pictures are used, it will attract a host of racist comments. He has recently complained to Sheffield Online but has had similar issues with The Star.
He said he stopped using X/Twitter when owner Elon Musk became part of US President Donald Trump’s administration. “What was once a useful vehicle for reaching people and talking about politics has just been subsumed by hate speech.
“I would say that over the course of a few years this has been feeding into racist street politics. Now, having seen the largest-ever mobilisation of the far right is terrifying – it confirms what we already knew.
Normalised
“The far right is being normalised on social media and is part of a broader trend.”
Coun Parekh added: “I am a Labour politician. That said, I am really worried about how the leadership hasn’t done enough to confront it.” He pointed to Keir Starmer’s ‘island of strangers’ speech about immigration, even though the prime minister said later he “deeply regretted” using the phrase.
“It is normalising the idea that black and brown people are legitimate targets for abuse. If you see the state doing that, why wouldn’t you do the same?
“It needs utter condemnation and it needs the Labour Party and the labour movement to join up with anti-racist organisations in communities, as well as lifting people up and giving people hope.”
Coun Parekh said that Labour Party members want a progressive government that stands up for black and brown migrants and is against the far right.
“We need to push for the politics needed to bring all communities together, restoring public services after decades of cuts, building more houses and ensuring day-to-day council services are better run.”
Tolerance
Council budgets need to be restored to the level they were at in 2008 before they went through years of government cuts under austerity policies, said Coun Parekh.
“I want to call on Keir Starmer and the Labour Party to do these things. He spoke in 2020 about having zero tolerance to racism and we have to live up to that.”
He said that the prime minister and government should not be signing up to a ‘stop the boats’ agenda and anyone in Labour pandering to a far right agenda should be stopped. “Zero tolerance should mean that,” he added.
“Labour should get back to a mission of economic justice – people should feel that change we campaigned for.”
Coun Parekh said: “We were told that the dark days would be behind us on July 4, 2024 (when Labour won the general election). That’s long overdue.
“Cuts to the winter fuel allowance and cuts to benefits fundamentally undermined the change that people voted for. No-one wanted that, no-one agreed to that, no-one should have been made to accept that.
“It all needs to be reversed and this government has a hard job that it has to do to make that up to the people of this country.”