Londoners grapple with reality of vote outcome
This is a divided city, in a divided country, separated by a chasm of anger.
Billingsgate, India Docks and Limehouse are iconic names of London’s East End. These are some of the areas where German bombs fell in the Blitz of the Second World War and the community — the famous East Enders — was known for its unbreakable spirit. Now, most of the houses have gone from these neighbourhoods. Much of the area is taken up with bank headquarters, financial offices mixed with a few executive-style condominiums.
Go a little further along the Thames River and you come to the Dagenham and Barking district. This area is a few hundred metres and cultural light years from the financial district. It is made up of two-storey row houses and public council estates. Many of the houses and cars have Union Jack flags or the white Cross of Saint George hanging in the windows.
Saleem Naeem, an engineer, says, “Dagenham is the first place of residence for many historical waves of immigrants. It is the place where every community arrives in this country.”
It is one of the few districts in London to solidly vote Leave in last week’s referendum — a result that surprised many, as it is a deeply multicultural community.
At the centre of Dagenham is the iconic statue of the England soccer star Sir Bobby Moore holding up the World Cup in 1966, the only time the country actually won the tournament. Moore was the captain of those teams; to English of a certain age he is Rocket Richard and Jean Béliveau combined — a tough, hard player with the manners of a gentleman.
There is a long cultural memory in Dagenham. Across the street from Bobby Moore’s statue are the Boleyn Pub and Stadium. They are named after the family made famous when Anne Boleyn, one of Henry VIIIth’s unfortunate wives, was executed.
At the Lahore Kebab in the Upton Park neighbourhood next door, owner Mohammed Usman is proud to have voted to leave the European Union. He came to Britain 24 years before and has seen the community change.
“It is so dirty and violent now. These European immigrants come and they have no jobs. They just walk around the street drinking beer.”
Usman takes me outside and shows phone booths covered with stickers from prostitutes advertising their wares and garages he claims are broken into by homeless migrants. “Ten years ago, it was not like that,” he says. He indicates the beer cans and excrement in the little square next to his restaurant. “The migrants come, and they are all young men, they sit for hours and cause problems.”
Tom Wilson, who has known Usman since he first opened the shop, agrees. “The vote to Leave wasn’t racism. It was about opportunity and sovereignty. Why should an unskilled European be allowed to come here when a Pakistani doctor or engineer is turned away? We want sovereignty. We want decisions to be made in Westminster, not Brussels. If we make mistakes, we make the mistakes, not someone else.”
Abel Chaudhry says he was going to vote Remain, “Then, four days before the vote, a man comes knocking at my door with three other people at 5 a.m. He says, ‘We have nowhere to sleep, give us water or a cup of tea.’ I said, ‘No’ so he started swearing at me. This happens here all the time. In this neighbourhood, there are whole families sleeping under the bridges with their suitcases. They come here with no job and they want to get everything.”
Across London is the trendy area of Islington. It is the heart of the Labour Party vote. Its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, lives here and Islington is synonymous with a left-wing, liberal viewpoint. Blighty Café is one of Islington’s top spots. It is decorated with Battle of Britain memorabilia and model Spitfire and Messerschmitt planes hang from the ceiling. There are 1940s costumes and uniforms that customers are encouraged to wear to celebrate Britain’s’ Finest Hour.
If any place might be expected to be a bastion of Leave support it would be here. However, inside the Blighty there is a wave of angry disappointment. Marius Stankevicius from Lithuania says, “It was the saddest day of my recent life. It’s going to be a Broken Kingdom, not a United Kingdom.”
With his gentle face Stankevicius has the look of a misplaced angel, however, his voice is incandescent when he speaks of the referendum: “I have been here for seven years. I have worked 12 hours a day. Now the British treat us like this? It is the end. I will go home. I don’t see the point of staying here.”
A similar rage is felt across the country. On chat shows, on social media, in the streets where a number of anti-migrant incidents have been reported. A petition started by a Leave supporter to repeal the referendum result has gained over 3.5 million signatures.
A good example of the misunderstanding on both sides came in the BBC Newsnight program this weekend. The producers staged an interview with supporters from both sides. One young man from London said, “We should really have a national conversation about these issues, because many people don’t understand the implications of the European Union.”
A woman from Boston, Lincolnshire, pulls her head back, looks at him with a bemused expression and asks, “Do you think all Leave voters are thick?”
She speaks about the troubles in her community, described as “the most segregated in all of Britain,” where over 70% of the electorate voted Leave. She says that some essential medical clinic services have been reduced because money has to be spent on translators to help migrant workers receive medical attention
Steven Powell has been a Labour Party activist in Islington for more than 40 years. During the coal strike of the 1980s, which also divided the country, he helped organize a concert at the Royal Albert Hall with South African and Welsh miners. That was a difficult time, but Powell thinks this referendum may spell the end of his party for the next decade. “We lost Scotland, and in the heartlands of Labour, support has vanished in the last two referendums.”
This is how he explains the Leave victory: “They have a nostalgia for a Britain of yesteryear that never existed. They are bitter — I don’t blame them — but they picked the wrong target. The European Union was their best hope and now it’s gone.”