After the vote, the hate: racism in the wake of Brexit

The eyewitness, who was with his nine-year-old daughter at the time and does not want to be named, told the Sunday Herald: “There has always been an undercurrent of racial tension in the area but it is like this guy now felt licensed to behave this way, publicly, in front of a good many people. It's like something has been roused in this country.”

According to online hate crime reporting site True Vision, which is funded by the police, 331 incidents were reported in England and Wales in the week following Brexit – a five-fold increase on the average of 63.

Some incidents have received wide attention: footage of a US army veteran and university lecturer being told to “go back to Africa” last Tuesday by three youths on a tram in Manchester went viral online. Three people were later arrested in connection with the incident.

BBC radio presenter Trish Adudu was moved to tears as she described facing a racist tirade in a street in Coventry, by a man who called her “n****r” and told her to “go home”.

In contrast, Police Scotland says monitoring so far indicates there has been no surge in levels of hate crime being reported north of the border.

The rising tensions south of the border have prompted charities to set up emergency campaigns to combat racism. Anti-fascist group Hope Not Hate will launch a new initiative tomorrow, using some of the funds raised in memory of MP Jo Cox following her murder.

The UK-wide campaign will to try to encourage communities to come together and will include meetings and events north of the border as well.

Despite there being no spike in figures as in England, Scotland is not immune from these type of attacks. Lauren Stonebanks was getting off a bus in Edinburgh last Monday when she heard a white woman shout after her: “Get your passport, you’re f****king going home.”

Stonebanks, 36, an artist and mental health campaigner who has Indo-Caribbean and Scottish heritage and was born in Scotland, said she was shocked by the abuse.

“I have encountered racial slurs before, but being told to go home was something I have not heard since the 1980s in the school playground,” she said. “It has made me more wary – even though I know this is not the view of the majority of people.”

Police Scotland say they are following a positive line of enquiry over this incident.

Neo-Nazi hate stickers with swastikas and slogans such as “white zone” also appeared in Glasgow last week. The group behind the postings, National Action, is the only far-right group in the UK to use the dark web and described by Hope Not Hate as “dangerous”, but thought to have only around 100 members in the UK.

Naomi McAuliffe, Scotland programme director for Amnesty International, said racism has long existed, but added: “Some of these far-right groups might be feeling particularly emboldened at the moment.

“It is something that is a particular worry, but there has been a real reaction against that kind of behaviour in Scotland and in Glasgow, so there are some positives as well.”

She added: “There is a concern that those who already have racist attitudes towards migrants, particularly towards EU migrants, are feeling quite emboldened and empowered now.”

Amnesty has launched an emergency campaign which will conduct research into the rise in racism and xenophobia across the UK in the wake of the Brexit vote and assess if it has an impact in the longer term.

McAuliffe said one aspect which would be explored is whether the approach taken by political leaders in Scotland to highlight the contribution of EU migrants to society had helped reduce the number of racist incidents post-Brexit.

“The referendum campaign was marked by divisive and xenophobic rhetoric as well as the failure of political leaders to condemn that rhetoric when it was used,” she said.

“We are now reaping the whirlwind of that afterwards - there is an obligation on political leaders and people who are taking part in these political debate not only to not use that rhetoric but also to condemn it when they do see it happening.

“That could have been done more and we may see a marked difference in Scotland where leaders really have done that.”

A report by Hope Not Hate published earlier this year warned that rhetoric and behaviour which was once the preserve of extremists was becoming increasingly mainstreamed. Examples it highlighted included Sun columnist Katie Hopkins describing migrants as a “plague of feral humans” and even Prime Minister David Cameron using the word “swarm” to describe migrants.

The ‘State of Hate’ report said a cartoon published by the Daily Mail that portrayed migrants as rats was “not just reminiscent of, but very close to, the Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda of the 1930s”.

Humza Yousaf, MSP for Glasgow Pollok, said there was a sense of “very real tension” south of the border aimed not just at Europeans, but anyone seen as an immigrant - even second or third generations born in the UK.

He said there was less evidence of the same happening in Scotland, but warned against complacency, adding: “There are just over 17 million in the UK who voted to leave the EU and I imagine the vast majority of those people have no truck with racism at all – but there is clearly a minority who do.

“If you live in an area where there is low employment, low wages and deindustrialisation, for 30 years successive Labour and Tory governments have been telling you it is all the immigrants fault.

“It is hardly a surprise there is a time when the chickens come home to roost. That discourse has to change.”

Yousaf called for politicians such as Theresa May - who last year made a much criticised speech warning mass immigration made it impossible to "build a cohesive society" - to demonstrate a different tone towards immigration.

"Otherwise without any doubt in my mind they are going to be responsible for creating deep divisions among communities that I am afraid will be there for generations," he added.

Antony Koz?owski, vice-chair of the Polish Social and Educational Society in Glasgow, said he felt the language used in the Brexit campaign – such as protecting borders and being one nation – was reminiscent of far right rhetoric.

“I don’t to scaremonger, I don’t want to be hysterical, but I do recognise very clearly the stirrings of hate,” he said “People only hear what they think they are hearing and comments about taking democratic control of our country and making our own laws – they hear that and it gives their personal feelings legitimacy.

“They think if someone like Boris Johnson or Michael Gove can say these things it is alright for me – I have had to live with these bloody immigrants for 20 years, now I can really say what I think as the country has voted to keep them out.

“Keeping them out is only one step away from kicking them out.”

Koz?owski said there had been an offensive posting made on Facebook aimed at a Polish priest last week, which may have been linked to Brexit.

But he said he had also received a leaflet showing Polish servicemen in the Second World War which read: “Thanks for being here then…glad you are still here now”. It was simply signed: “From a fellow Glaswegian".

Karissa Singh set up social media pages to monitor incidents of racism and hate post Brexit, after after a man walked up to her and her brother in a bar in London after the Brexit vote and told her to “go back to her own country”.

"A lot of the incidents we have been hearing have a jubilant victorious overtone to it – people singing and celebrating, smiling at people and telling them they have to go home," she said. "It is this really smug sense of victory of having taken back control of the country - it is quite sickening really."

But the human rights activist, who was born in Wales, said the fact that all races were being targeted highlighted it wasn't just racism against other Europeans which had been awoken by the Brexit campaign.

“It is racist narratives that have been played upon by mainstream politicians and sections of the media for a long time,” she said. “These thought processes have been simmering, developing and strengthening and now they are coming out.

“The EU referendum is the trigger – but it is not really to do with the EU at all.”