Birmingham Stabbings - Farage Racism

In the early hours of Sunday morning, there was a series of stabbings in central Birmingham. As the BBC has reported, “The first stabbing was in Constitution Hill at 00:30 BST then the killer moved south, apparently attacking at random, officers said. The stabbings did not appear terrorism related, gang related or connected to disorder, West Midlands Police said. Murder inquiry detectives said they were hunting a single suspect”.

Later in the day, West Midlands Police had put together CCTV footage showing the man they suspected of the attacks, in which one man died and two people were critically injured. Five others suffered less serious injuries. The BBC this morning: “Images of the man officers want to find were published on Sunday evening. Detectives have been working through the night following leads from the public to identify and find the suspect”.

It is clear that, although the man in the CCTV images is a murder suspect, his identity is not yet known to the public. Had it been, the cops would most likely have already arrested him. But such trivialities as logic and common sense do not apply when there is a fearful mob to incite, and so, for Brexit Party Oberschissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage, they have been dispensed with in favour of a little racist scaremongering.

So off he went. “Why have West Midlands Police not told us who committed the knife attacks last night? I think I know the answer”. Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more, squire! A nod’s as good as a wink to a blind bat, know what I mean? The problem with this intervention is that we do know what he means. He’s inferring that the suspect is a recent migrant, with fall-back positions of him being a terrorist, or just not being white.

This is confirmed by the response to Nige’s dog-whistling, with the full panoply of “adore my dogs, love Europe, hate EU, Brexit all the way, #FBPE blocked” Tweeters nodding along obediently. These overwhelmed the responses telling Mr Thirsty that if the cops knew who the bloke was, they wouldn’t have released the CCTV images and he wouldn’t be on the front page of most of this morning’s newspapers.

In any case, as the BBC has now told in a news update, “A man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after one person died and seven others were injured in stabbings across Birmingham. A 27-year-old man was arrested at an address in the Selly Oak area of the city at about 04:00 BST, West Midlands Police said. Police said he was also being held over seven counts of attempted murder”. The suspect is now in custody.

There is no sign of terrorism, no evidence that the suspect entered the UK on an inflatable boat, no sign that he is not in the UK legally. Just more nods and winks at the Farage fan base and more hatred stoked up, another loss of life leveraged for kicks and clicks.

Nigel Farage likes to talk about the “silent majority”. If only he were part of it for once.

Enjoy your visit to Zelo Street? You can help this truly independent blog carry on talking truth to power, while retaining its sense of humour, by adding to its Just Giving page at

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/zelostreet7