BY AMANDA CAMPBELL


We all love a friendly, helpful bus driver. One that has lived in his community his whole life; one that cares for his passengers that rely on him.


Abdul Tan Rashid is that bus driver. The 37 year old has worked on the buses in his home town for 13 years. So when, just days after the Brexit vote, some passengers refused to get on his bus, he knew things would only get worse.


Later that day he was warned by another passenger to “enjoy your job while you’re still here” – as he “would soon be going home.”


“My home is Middlesbrough,” he says, “Always has been, always will be. But the meaning of what that passenger meant was clear.”


Tan, as he is known, had to ask a passenger to stop smoking. The reply was, “You can’t tell me what to do. You shouldn’t even be in this country. We’ve got rid of the Europeans, and we’ll be getting rid of you soon.”


Tan added that other black and ethnic minority colleagues even faced violence and death threats after the vote.


“It’s a difficult situation, you’re trying to be professional. But why should you go to work fearing for your life?”


No stranger to racism, in the days that followed Tan was subject to increasing levels of abuse. His wife was threatened with a knife. Others in his immediate family and friends also became the innocent targets of hate.


Even the four year old son of his friend was not exempt. At the boy’s nursery some parents told their children not to talk to him. When he came home that day he told his family he “didn’t want to be a Muslim anymore.”


Hatred it seems, has no borders. Tan reports that Polish colleagues were told ‘we have left the EU so why are you still here?’


A recent Guardian survey found that since the vote European embassies in Britain have logged dozens of incidents of suspected hate crime and abuse against their citizens. Most involved citizens from eastern European countries, with more


attacks against Poles than against all other nationalities put together.


Hurtful and nasty, even schoolchildren are apparently mirroring views they’re hearing at home. Unite member and Show Racism the Red Card’s (SRtRC) education officer, Laura Pidcock, says post-Brexit some primary school children now appear to believe ‘immigrants will be sent home’.


The charity speaks to school children about what racism means to its victims. Shockingly she says that children she has spoken to in Newcastle have drawn English Defence League logos and told teachers they think the UK is being ‘taken over’ by immigrants who ‘only want council houses’.


“One child at the beginning of the lesson said ‘Miss you don’t need to come here and teach us this because we voted to leave so they’re all going home now’. There has been a shift. Racism has always existed but there is a move to an openly anti-Muslim or anti-immigrant sentiment,” she reports.


Hate crimes New Home Office statistics confirm the number of hate crimes leaped by a staggering 41 per cent in the month after the vote. But since August hate crime and racist incidents have declined – although the levels do remain significantly higher than last year.


Hope Not Hate communications director, Nick Ryan, said the reason for the increase in hate crimes is insidiously banal.


“The increase isn’t because there are now more racists in Britain. Rather, the people who held those views to begin with now feel more comfortable expressing them in public,” he believes.


“Nor do we think these incidents are being organised by far right groups, although they, as well as some mainstream politicians and the media, have certainly contributed to the current climate.”


A recent report on the UK by the European Commission against racism and intolerance also highlighted a “number of areas of concern” regarding xenophobic rhetoric in politics and the media.


The report cited David Cameron’s use of the word ‘swarm’ to describe migrants,


23 uniteWORKS Autumn 2016


Nigel Farage’s statement about “Muslims who want to form a fifth column and kill us” and the Sun newspaper’s publication of column that likened migrants to ‘cockroaches’.


Unite national officer for equalities Harish Patel, said the government needs to get its priorities right.


“Turning immigration not only into an issue but a ‘problem’ was a dangerous game played by the government and the far right including Ukip,” Harish said.


“It’s shameful that we are witnessing racism, abuse, threats and physical harm on our streets, schools and workplaces. How can we then call ourselves a civilised country that wants to preserve so called ‘British values’?”


He added that, “Unite’s values are unity, equality, trade union rights and solidarity and this government should stop pandering to the likes of Ukip and do its job of protecting and improving the rights and dignity of all those living and working in this country.”


Unite members like Tan won’t be intimated or stopped by the peddlers of hatred. At this year’s TUC Tan took to the rostrum and spoke in a debate on this very issue. He called on the TUC to develop a new anti- racism campaign.


Moreover he urged everyone who has had to endure this abuse to speak to their union, to speak up, speak out and report these dreadful crimes. To loud applause he said,


“Now is the time for us to stand together in solidarity, not hatred.”


Don’t suffer in silence


If you’ve had racist abuse at work you should inform your Unite rep and employer. Outside of work still tell your Unite rep and the police too if you are able to. These crimes have skyrocketed but we believe many more go unreported. Details of your nearest regional office are on Unite’s website www.unitetheunion.org


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