Rachel Marsh talking to Newsnight’s Victoria Derbyshire on 15 September (screengrab).
“I’m feeling fairly disgruntled by this. And also heartbroken to discover that I am living among some very bigoted, xenophobic people.”
When I saw a video of a woman saying those words to Victoria Derbyshire on Newsnight last week, I was stopped in my tracks, as so many people were, by her evident emotion. Rachel Marsh lives in Piddington, the quiet Oxfordshire village which has recently been rocked by a massive furore about the proposed development of the next-door barracks into accommodation for men seeking asylum.
In that furore, one side has taken up most of the oxygen, the side that not only objects to the development, but demonises migrant men and states that “mass immigration from cultures that do not operate the same way that we do has caused a misogynist, violent environment for women and girls to live in”. In such a context, Rachel Marsh’s voice was notable not just for its emotion, but because she was swimming against the tide in her neighbourhood by speaking up against xenophobia at all. The reaction she has encountered has been vicious and horrifying. And while the media spotlight has now moved on from Piddington, it would be wrong to think that anything has been resolved.
Another village, in Suffolk, is said to be ready to follow Piddington’s lead in holding an independence referendum as a stunt to protest against proposed asylum accommodation. And with far-right actors like Daniel Thomas (known as “Danny Tommo”) and Dan Wootton calling Piddington the “ground zero of the coming civil war”, the tinderbox is waiting for a spark. There are lessons here that need to be learned by all of us who share Marsh’s heartbreak about the rise of open xenophobia in Britain.
What gave Rachel Marsh the courage to speak out in this way? She has been living in Piddington for over 20 years, and she obviously loves the place. She and her husband, a DJ born in the UK with Jamaican heritage, moved there from London and renovated an old house with a great view of the bucolic landscape from its back garden. Marsh worked at a local stables for years – although now her job as a chef usually takes her elsewhere – sent her sons to local schools, and has good friends among her neighbours.
Undoubtedly, her determination to speak up against racism is partly personal. “I have two mixed-heritage sons,” she has said. “When I hear people around here talking in such a dehumanising way about black and brown men, I do wonder what they think of my family.”
Marsh talks to me about growing up in New Zealand, and coming to understand the depth of racism against Maori and Pacific Islander people there. She is worried that things are going backwards in Britain. “We are seeing the same kind of racism now that we saw in the 70s and 80s – but maybe it never went away, maybe we just thought it went away.” And – something that has become absolute anathema now for the far right – she feels empathy for the people who are coming to the UK to seek asylum.
One of the first moments when she became aware of the growing extremism in her community was when she shared in a local Facebook group a report from the Helen Bamber Foundation detailing the harms to asylum seekers caused by being kept in military-style accommodation. Even though she was sharing the report partly as an argument against the proposed development of the centre, she received a backlash simply for showing sympathy with migrants. “The vilification took me by surprise. I don’t know why more people don’t recognise that you can be against this centre for humanitarian reasons, not for xenophobic reasons.”
‘I can’t let this kind of rhetoric dominate the whole conversation. There has to be a way of talking about this issue without denying people’s humanity’
This darker side to the debate has been encouraged by outside interests. Many politicians who are hoping to exploit the furore for their own profile and campaigns have turned up in Piddington: Chris Philp from the Conservatives, Suella Braverman from Reform and Rupert Lowe from Restore Britain have photographed themselves here and recorded interviews with residents, particularly amplifying women who say that they will be too scared to walk alone if there are migrant men housed in the centre.
More poisonous still was the intervention of the British Security Project, a far-right group who camped nearby for a few days saying that they were there to protect Piddington, and Daniel Thomas, known as Danny Tommo. Thomas first promised to bring in thousands of supporters, but after Marsh spoke about how he was not wanted, he visited the village on his own. He has recorded videos asking residents to agree that they need the support of the Patriot Platform – the masked, black-clad men who mobilise against migrants.
In such a febrile atmosphere, Marsh is brave to keep speaking up. “I really sat with it,” after the first backlash, she says, “but I can’t let this kind of rhetoric dominate the whole conversation. There has to be a way of talking about this issue without denying people’s humanity.”
The reaction has been shocking, even in these almost unshockable times.
When the Newsnight interview went out, a deluge of anger and mockery came flooding back. One anti-immigrant campaigner, Orla Minihane, visited her home and started shouting at her from the street, an encounter that was filmed and shared across social media even though it clearly identifies where Marsh lives. Tommy Robinson shared that video online, and others on X have shared her street address. Despite complaints to the platforms and reports to the police, those posts are still visible. She has received rape threats and death threats. “We will Jason Arday both of you,” said one; others call her skank and whore, shit-skin lover and n----- lover.
These social media platforms that are refusing to take action against the doxxing and the abuse are clearly complicit in this growing extremism. But mainstream media is also sanitising those who spread dehumanising narratives. Everyone has now heard about how Piddington residents held their mock referendum on independence from Britain, egged on by the chair of the parish council, Tim McNally. McNally has even said that he might rename the village Trumpington, hoping for Trump’s support for its hard-right stance. McNally’s antics have been covered by every single media outlet in Britain, and over and over again he has been seen as rather charmingly eccentric. Even the New Statesman described him as “energetic”, as “joking” and “smiling”, and when he used the term “indigenous” to describe the villagers, simply commented that such language is not “traditionally” used.
At the same time, every right-leaning outlet repeats xenophobic narratives in their coverage of Piddington, circling constantly around the fears of women and the dangers of migrant men, constantly repeating the idea that those coming into the accommodation will be sexually rapacious criminals. As I read and watched the deluge of coverage of Piddington’s plight, I realised that there is now a massive rightwing communications ecosystem, stretching from Tommy Robinson with his near-2 million X followers, to Dan Wootton with nearly three-quarters of a million million YouTube subscribers, along with GB News and the Daily Express, to more mainstream outlets such as the Daily Mail, Telegraph and Times, which is constantly strengthening this divisive rhetoric – and few people are challenging this.
Yet there have been some silver linings, Marsh says. Many people have rallied around her. She says that local friends of her children, who are now in their 20s, have been messaging their support for her constantly. She has received support online and in real life from people in the music industry, from old friends and new acquaintances, and from the local MP. “My intention of speaking out, beyond Piddington, was to hopefully give courage to others to speak and stand up to racism. But I’m concerned that how I’ve been treated by far-right activists will prevent a lot of good people from speaking out.”
That concern is justified. While I am visiting, three of Marsh’s local friends also come into the house and sit down with us for tea. They are happy to talk to me about how they support her, but they do not want to be identified. “I see what’s happening to Rachel,’ one says, ‘I see the vitriol and the backlash. It scares me and it scares me for my family.”
In a debate where the fears of white women are used to whip up hatred of minority men, it’s vital that women who refuse that framing of our experiences can be heard
One of them says to me: “I do feel vulnerable now in this village. I feel anxious. That isn’t about asylum seekers coming into the centre. That’s about the far right. They are creating an uproar, they’ve hijacked this discussion. Yes, we all agree that this isn’t the right place for this accommodation centre. But that isn’t because women are at risk from migrant men. They talk about women as if we don’t have a voice.”
Another says: “There are a lot of people too scared to express their opinion who are in total support of Rachel.”
I know that for the left, voices like Marsh’s can feel marginal. As a white, middle-class woman, her voice may well carry less weight than those people who are actually bearing the brunt of the racism right now. But as she herself says in the Newsnight interview, we can’t expect visible minorities to be the only ones speaking up; white people need to be more vocal. The divisions are widening and the stakes are getting higher. And in a debate where the fears of white women are so often being used to whip up hatred of migrant and minority men, it’s vital that women who refuse that framing of our experiences can be heard.
At the moment, those who want to resist the far right are often put in an impossible position. They are expected to speak up as individuals, rather than as part of a collective movement, to bear all the backlash and hate by themselves, both online and offline. Unless they have some paid role in a charity or political party, there is no structure to hold them or care for them, and others see that fragility, and are scared to speak up in turn.
But Marsh and her friends say that they hope that something good might still come of this episode. One parish councillor, Michael Nixon, also spoke to me with more optimism. “There are good people in this village who say that the way Rachel has been treated is not OK on any level, who do believe in free speech.” He feels that there is still the possibility for conversation and understanding across the divide. “We think that if people could sit down together and talk about this, we could get somewhere. There has to be room for nuance.” There has to be, but we will all have to work together to build that room, and urgently.
Natasha Walter is an author and founder of Women for Refugee Women. Her most recent book, Feminism for a World on Fire, is published by Virago. You can buy it at the Nerve Bookshop at a discounted price.