The news from Southport overnight was very depressing.
The tragedy of an attack on children in which three have lost their lives, and others are critically injured is bad enough for any community to bear. To have a vigil for the dead and injured, and all who support them, turned into a riot by the far-right on the basis of what the police say is misinformation about the identity of the alleged attacker is appalling.
The humanity of those who created this riot has to be questioned. They clearly do not care about a grieving community. Instead, they are seeking to use them. That has to be condemned, without hesitation.
But there is also a lesson in this because this is what the far-right does. It exploits suffering people to create division with the intention of gaining from the resulting tension. That the division might not exist, and that the tension may be exaggerated by their own claims is something about which they care only to the extent that they acknowledge that this is their modus operandi.
Far-right politics is parasitical. Its intention is to exploit the suffering of others.
There is a lesson in that, though. Whilst no-one can ultimately prevent crimes of the sort committed in Southport by those intent on doing them, a great deal of suffering in our society can be relieved. We need a government intent on doing that, with the explicit goal of reducing differences within our society. That is the only way to defeat the far-right.
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Appalling.
I was in Oxford a year or so ago and passed one of the ‘anti 15 minute city’ demonstrations.
It was a bit like the Dementors from Harry Potter had arrived and sucked every available IQ point from the demonstrators.
I suggest that we should be looking at what happened in Southport as a failure of education to give thinking skills. There is a clear benefit to both those taught and society as a whole to teach these as they do seem to reduce crime as a whole because they stop people behaving impulsively and as a result getting involved in criminal and anti social behaviour
Thank you and well said, Richard.
I add that the law to require recipients of foreign money be enforced, too, so we learn who’s funding the EDL and the lifestyle of its leader, who when arrested in Canada recently was found to travel on an Irish passport and be resident somewhere usually warm and sunny. I imagine the establishment will not want to look in that particular can.
I reiterate my comments on a previous blog.
This now includes the recent announcement on Winter Fuel Payments, too many people have the perception that money and resources are unfairly distributed, unable to get GP appointments, no NHS dentistry, declining High Streets and increased costs, there are, of course, many more issues.
Some point out the level of tax evasion compared to benefit fraud, but tax evasion and other corporate tax abuse is rarely visible.
Seeing daylight drug abuse, boarded up shops, graffiti on buildings amongst other highly visual factors, if any readers of this blog regularly go through Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester for example, watching tall buildings spring up with expensive rents, all contribute these feelings.
Given that a number of these thugs have been photographed and will be identifiable, I wonder how many will get more than 5 years in prison for actually rioting, rather than discussing climbing onto a motorway gantry?
A very good question
My thoughts exactly Cyndy. Violent, drunken racist scum attacking the police and causing quite a few of them injury. So, as people have now been jailed for up to 5 years for the ‘crime’ of trying to organise entirely peaceful protests against a potential climate catastrophe, how are these thugs going to be treated?
Can we expect 15 year sentances for example for GBH, affray, etc? Or will most of them not even be arrested?
Incidentally, I see a lot of them were chanting the name of their beloved leader ‘Tommy’ (actually Stephen Yaxley Lennon; isn’t that an Irish surname?). I see that he’s managed to avoid jail for contempt of court because when he was arrested at Folkestone the police let him out on bail, and he’s promptly left the country!
What great law enforcement eh?