Ryanair's failure to condemn racist rant is tantamount to condoning it. In Brexitland racism is all the rage!

From today, passengers booking flights on Ryanair will be able to request not to be seated next to a racist. For just £110 (one way) customers can avoid the perils of the random seating option, which is free, but could result in you being racially abused and having to move in order to placate the racist.

Or, you could boycott Ryanair and fly with an airline that doesn’t condone racism. For the avoidance of doubt, failure to condemn the racist abuse of a grieving disabled pensioner is tantamount to condoning it, which leaves the company exposed should a legal case be brought against them.

Ryanair’s defunct 1990’s style PR mantra that, “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” (there is - the PR "guru" Max Clifford), combined with O’Leary's obnoxious pugnacity, have turned the brand into the VHS of the aviation industry. Old fashioned, unreliable and stuck in a time warp.

On becoming aware of the scandal, Ryanair should have killed the story by acting quickly to condemn the racist abuse of Delsie Gayle. By outlining race related policies and reassuring passengers that training will be stepped up to prevent further incidents of hate crime on their flights. Opting for radio silence just exposes the ineptitude of the all-white, male dominated Ryanair board. 

Have they learned nothing from the court case 10 years ago, where 5 black men (the only black passengers on the flight) were ejected from a Ryanair plane because one white passenger complained to the captain that the calypso musicians looked suspicious? Even when censured by the courts, Ryanair refused to apologise.

Watching the heart breaking ITV interview with Ms Gayle, I was struck when she said that she has travelled by plane for over 53 years and had never experienced anything like that before. This vile, flagrant racist rant was accompanied with a threat of physical violence and comes at a time when Brexit race hate attacks are at epidemic proportions.

Not everyone who voted for Brexit was racist but I'm pretty certain the racists voted for Brexit. That’s an important distinction, borne out by the UN special rapporteur on racism in May. “The environment leading up to the referendum, the environment during the referendum, and the environment after the referendum has made racial and ethnic minorities more vulnerable to racial discrimination and intolerance,” she said.

Liz Fekete, director of the institute of Race Relations believes that the referendum debate and result emboldened a lot of people. They felt justified. They thought they could say racist things in public. They lost their shame. “Let's be honest. Racism is mainstream. Anti-immigration is mainstream in our political culture. We have had a political rhetoric around immigration with ministers talking about creating a hostile environment for undocumented workers”.

I cried when I heard the EU referendum result. I was still crying when I got to the school gates when another mother asked me if I was okay. When I told her that I felt like an unwelcome immigrant for the first time in over twenty years of living here, she said, “We didn’t vote to keep people like you out! We don’t see you as an immigrant, Tess!”.

An awkward conversation ensued about what type of immigrant she thought she was voting to lock out of the country and how dark the tone of the skin to qualify for deportation. Then,  Demented with grief (the loss of hope to hate) - more so than anger - I went straight home and ordered a T-shirt online, with the words, “This is what an immigrant looks like,” emblazoned across my chest. I wore it standing at the school gates every day for a week. I still wear it now (though not every day. I only have the one...). It's my way of rebelling against the everyday racism that thrives in the toxic Tory swamp of Brexitland.

The burgeoning evidence that the EU referendum unleashed an tsunami of far right bigotry is borne out by the daily race hate attacks directed, not against immigrants like me, but those of a darker hue. Women of colour have been disproportionately targeted, often in front of their children.

A friend of mine said she went from never being racially abused in her life to being targeted on a regular basis, since Brexit.  In a recent incident she was told that “British people” voted for P***s like her to leave. To which she replied, “No, you voted for the white foreigners to leave. Us P***s get to stay!” She jokes about her repertoire of acerbic ripostes but I don't laugh. My heart hurts with all this hate.

Instead of containing the monster that Brexit unleashed, the right wing/mainstream media is feeding it. The BBC’s decision to portray Tommy Robinson as a martyr, silenced by the media - before giving him a 20 minute platform to incite hatred, together with the decision to platform alt right, racist, former Trump advisor, Steve Bannon, were either recklessly ill-judged or deliberate attempts to stir the already simmering pot of racial tensions. 

Journalism is supposed to be about speaking truth to power, not baiting the powerless and calling it “balance”. Shame on Ryanair, shame on the Tories & shame on the BBC. 

The Labour Party conference: A government in waiting

From Emily Thornberry to Diane Abbott, Labour oozed talent, ideas & competence at this years conference. As I said to Sky news after Jeremy Corbyn's speech, "If I were Theresa May, I'd be shakin (no "g") in my Jimmy Choos.

The press scrum right in front of me. They were tripping over themselves to get shots of JC.

Hugh Grant looked decidedly hacked off at the..... "Hacked Off fringe event" re Islamophobia in the MSM. He totally blanked the Telegraph reporter who pleaded with him to do an interview. I asked her in the meeting if she could put in a good word for me with her bosses. "As a human rights, socialist journalist, it's been a life long ambition to write for the Telegraph" I said. "How do you rate my chances"? That was the ice breaker. My main question was "As a journalist, how do you feel about the Telegraph's recent cartoon depicting Labour Party members as rabid dogs, with an image of Mohammed wagging the dog's tail"? In fairness to her, she gave a brilliant answer, "I'm only in the job a few weeks"! The audience laughed with her,  I welcomed her & it was good natured. In the Labour Party we challenge wrongs without attacking individuals. That's the gentler kinder politics I signed up to.

If you watch nothing else today, watch this incredibly powerful video that tells a stroy, captures the mood of the nation and inspires - all in 4 minutes. "Our Town" has had more than 1 million views within 48 hours.