It was entirely right and proper that the nation should have erupted in both sorrow and anger this week. Sorrow was, of course, the instinctive human response to the utterly senseless murder of three little girls and the serious wounding of eight others while they were happily dancing to the music of Taylor Swift in a holiday club in Southport. The sort of sorrow that makes every one of us who has had children of our own recoil in disbelief and overwhelming sympathy.
But anger? Anger, of course, that anyone could have committed such an act.
But what we have also seen this past week is the expression of a different kind of anger and most of us will have found it deeply disturbing. It has been aimed at the police: the very men and women who often risk their own lives to protect us from harm. And also at entirely innocent people who observe their own religion and may have come from other countries to seek a new life here.
In simple terms: can it ever be justifiable to set fire to a police car and hurl missiles at police officers or attack those whom they are trying to protect? Must we now accept that rioting in the streets has become the inevitable resort for those - mostly young white men - who claim that their own way of life is being threatened by people for whom they have a visceral hatred?
The answer to that can only be of course not. But can it ever be justified to demonstrate in favour of a particular cause even if there is a risk that the demonstration might become violent? Even if that violence is not instigated by the demonstrators themselves, but those who seek to make political gains from it.
You will, of course, be aware of the background to my questions. Most of us will have been shocked to wake up on Wednesday morning to learn that there had been violence on the streets of Southport even as we slept. This, after all, was a town in deep mourning for its lost children. As has become traditional on these terrible occasions, the bouquets of flowers and cuddly toys had been piling up. Local dignitaries, church leaders and politicians had been expressing the grief of the community. Many hundreds gathered to pay their respects at a vigil in the town. But a very different form of gathering was being planned by right-wing extremists who had no connection with Southport or its bereaved citizens.
Their aim was not to express sympathy but to vent their anger because they believed that the man who attacked that children’s dance class was a Muslim and an illegal immigrant. And so they set out to attack the Southport Mosque. When the police tried to stop them, they became the target. The mobs hurled bricks and petrol bombs at them. North West Ambulance Service later said that at least 39 police officers were injured in the line of duty and 27 had to be taken to hospital.
The next night the rioting spread to Hartlepool and to Manchester. One local MP, Jonathan Brash, called it appalling: "The criminal damage and the unrest has made people feel incredibly unsafe in our town. The people who were out last night, they don't represent us. This is not what Hartlepool is about or Hartlepool values.”
Speaking from No 10, Sir Keir Starmer put it succinctly. He will not ‘allow a summer of riots’ and will ‘stop the gangs of thugs’. He added: ‘It’s not protest. It’s not legitimate. It’s crime. Violent disorder. An assault on the rule of law and the execution of justice.’
Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, was accused of ‘whipping up’ the rioters by suggesting that the ‘truth was being withheld’ about the Southport attacks and ‘very legitimate questions’ were being raised. In a video for Twitter/X he repeated suggestions that the Southport killer was ‘being monitored by the security services’ and he added: ‘The police say it’s a non-terror incident. Just as they say the stabbing of an army lieutenant-colonel in uniform on the streets of Kent the other day was a non-terror incident.’
Farage believes it is ‘perfectly reasonable’ to ask what is happening to law and order in our country. Tobias Ellwood, a former Conservative MP, responded by saying: “I lost my brother to terrorism. To ramp up hatred online by claiming the Southport attack was terrorist related (culminating in riots, a mosque damaged and 27 police injured) is not just reprehensible but needs addressing. Otherwise it will happen again.’
Brendan Cox, the widower of the murdered MP Jo Cox, said Farage’s remarks made him ‘nothing better than a Tommy Robinson in a suit’. He told Today on BBC Radio 4: ‘It is beyond the pale to use a moment like this to spread your narrative and to spread your hatred, and we saw the results on Southport’s streets last night.’
Tommy Robinson is, of course, one of the founders of the English Defence League (EDL). He posted a video in which he claimed: ‘None of us are feeling safe in our own country, in our own towns.’ He accused the government and police of ‘endangering our country’ and said they cared more about people coming to the UK from other countries ‘than British children’. Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, is reportedly looking at whether the EDL should be banned under terror laws.
Within days of those exchanges, a 17 year old youth appeared in court charged with the murders. Police said he was born in Cardiff and not an illegal Muslim immigrant. But that did not stop those who sought to use the Southport atrocity for their own ends. Posts linked it to other recent prominent murders, immigration crime and terrorism. One analyst said that within 24 hours there were at least 27 million impressions for posts speculating that the perpetrator was Muslim, a migrant, a refugee or a foreigner.
As I write, police are preparing for more violent disorder in at least eight towns and cities. The Times reports that posters shared on the encrypted messaging app, Telegram, and other social media channels call for ‘patriots’ to take action. Their message says: ‘Enough is enough’. Several of the events being publicised are linked to an organisation called ‘Patriotic Alliance’ which has been accused by the former cabinet minister Michael Gove of promoting neo-Nazi ideology.
It is now 13 years since London, followed by other towns and cities, erupted into the most violent protests seen in this country for a generation. They began when about 300 people walked from London's Broadwater Farm estate to Tottenham police station seeking "justice" and "answers" over the death of a local man called Mark Duggan. He had been shot dead by police three days earlier. The uprising spread across England, including to the cities of Birmingham, Salford, Manchester, Liverpool and Nottingham.
As the Times notes today: ‘These were not political demonstrations either. Instead a localised dispute mutated into copycat thuggery and looting under the influence of social media. In the years since, the power of online platforms to amplify destructive and conspiracist narratives has increased many times over. What happened in Southport — and earlier this month in Harehills in Leeds — shows that those who wield power in Silicon Valley are still repeating the same mistakes. Platforms such as Twitter/X create a feedback loop of lies that encourage violence and more misinformation. Consider intermittent outbreaks of interethnic violence in Leicester, once heralded as the great success story of British multiculturalism, or recent unrest in Rochdale sparked by misleadingly edited video of an altercation involving police officers at Manchester Airport.
‘It is well past time for social media companies to look beyond their balance sheets and take responsibility for the antisocial consequences of their tolerance for hatred. If they cannot do so, then governments must use their powers to bring them to heel. This much was obvious to ministers of every stripe long before the people of Southport had their unprecedented pain compounded by the mob, and their good name tarnished by hate tourists. Neither they, nor the silent majority of other towns traumatised by violence, are responsible. Those who are, be they in Big Tech or parliament, must now spare others the same agonies.’
Is this a picture you recognise? Are you worried about the reaction to the protests that followed the horror of Southport or do you believe that there is a danger that we might be overreacting to a relatively small number of extremists? Indeed, do you think we might even be feeding their appetite for publicity by exaggerating their influence? In either case, do you agree that there should be more severe restrictions on certain internet platforms that would limit their ability to spread disinformation?
Let us know.
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