I somewhat agree with you.

Faced with such injustice and the inability to discuss the situation sensibly to a mutually acceptable solution (I can just imagine uttering this sentence to one of those blokes) I think the red mist would descend and, like you, I’m no hero but I don’t know that I could contain myself.

However, as Stephen says, violence really should be the last resort for many reasons not least that you end up a victim yourself.

The police’s online report system has logged a five-fold(that’s to say 500%) increase in hate-crime reports post Brexit. The National Police Chiefs’ Council has confirmed this. Would you like to provide a link which supports your claim that these data, collated by a government institution, are a “media invention”?

It was always predictable that a Leave vote would massively embolden the more reactionary elements in British society(eg. Covent Garden being marched through by a group chanting about getting rid of ‘the Poles and then the gays’ – that’s Covent Garden remember, not some mainly white council estate in Bradford); what was further predictable was that Leave voters like you would respond to the surge in xenophobia and racism by denying that it was happening at all.

Violence is always best avoided in situations that aren’t self-defence otherwise a problem with a gobby idiot can soon become a life threatening problem

I know what you’re saying but I’m not sure I could be that sensible. Boys like that need showing what’s what so they don’t do it again. I’m no hero or tough guy but there are lines that shouldn’t be crossed.

*hope for

The problem is that those twonks are exactly the sort of idiots that would carry a knife and not be afraid to put it in someone in broad daylight if they were genuinely confronted.
Short of battering the absolute fudge out of them (which of course has its issues) you risk becoming a statistic.
Filming the issue leading to an arrest, shaming and lost opportunities is possibly the best outcome you can hour for in this situation.

Second, while it’s of course false that 52% of the population are xenophobic, there was undoubtedly a component of that in the leave campaign. Witness UKIP’s disgusting “breaking point” poster and the demonisation of immigrants — which was most effective in parts of the country that receive approximately zero immigrants (it’s hard to blame immigrants for all your problems when they treat you at hospital, greet you kindly while working hard in your local Tesco, and chat with you outside the school gates).

Given this, it’s hardly surprising that the minority who *are* genuinely xenophobic now feel emboldened, even vindicated.