UK ‘State of Hate’ Report Ignores Leftist Hate

A watchdog group’s flawed – and dishonest – methodology.

The organization Hope Not Hate was founded in the UK in 2004 ‘to provide a positive antidote to the politics of hate’, in its own words. On February 18th it released its annual ‘State of Hate’ Report, described as a ‘guide to what the far right has been up to’. It is uncertain why the far left is excluded from the group’s investigation of ‘hate’; indeed, the criteria for inclusion or exclusion of the groups and individuals who figure in this report is unclear. A rag-bag of disparate groups and individuals are included, ranging from men with gripes about feminism, Nazi Satanists, and legally registered political parties.

Hope Not Hate is an influential group, frequently advising the media including TV programs, with its research often cited by academics who may then advise governments, regulators and social media companies. The ‘State of Hate’ report has had considerable media coverage. It paints a gloomy portrait of a rudderless, angry, far right which are allegedly on the rise in the UK, fueled by disenchantment with politics, and where an anti-Muslim rhetoric has replaced an anti-immigrant rhetoric.

But conducting this kind of social research is extremely complex and difficult. It’s hard enough to get a good picture of outward behavior, let alone to determine people’s true motivation and attitudes. Hope Not Hate’s report is methodologically limited and conceptually flawed, yet they exercise no caution in attributing ‘hate’ to thousands upon thousands of individuals.

The report aims to investigate ‘extremism’, despite noting the difficulty of producing a convincing workable definition of extremism as a unified phenomenon. Rather than stopping to consider that this may be because there is no such thing as general ‘extremism’, they forge on regardless, hence grouping together very diverse phenomena. Rarely if ever do they explain how those included in their report merit the description of ‘far right’.

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