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Someone, please stop the world, I want to get off. Three children, aged six, seven and nine, have died in a terrifying knife attack in Southport. Five children and two adults are still in a critical condition. Local people have been holding a vigil for the dead and the injured, but a few streets away a sizeable group of far right thugs have attacked a local mosque and are now attacking the police, all the while chanting the name of Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, ‘Stop The Boats’, ‘English till I die’ and Robinson’s old favourite ‘We want our country back’.
It started to kick off when prime minister Keir Starmer came to leave a floral tribute. Just some loud, aggressive heckling but it turned out to be the touch paper being set alight in slow motion.
Starmer was in Southport on behalf of all of us, regardless of our politics. The tribute he paid was also yours and mine. Let me show you a quote I found on X tonight:
“Let me shock you – the people heckling Starmer in Southport don’t care about the children who were brutally murdered, the ones who survived but are injured and traumatised. They don’t care about the devastated families either. They see an opportunity to spread hate. That’s it.”
Tonight’s rioting took hate to another level. We do not know the facts about the alleged killer just yet and police have asked people not to speculate and to avoid spreading misinformation. Fat lot of good that did. Instead, the mob took over and attacked not just a mosque and the police, but all of us who want the country to unite, nor further divide.
An assumption has been made that the alleged suspect is a muslim. We don’t know that. What if his family did come from Rwanda? Something like 2% of Rwandans are muslims. But I repeat: we don’t know. Do we want the killer to be brought to justice or do we want mob rule to prevail? Do we want the actions of a few hundred thugs to damage any potential court case? These shouldn’t be difficult questions to answer.
The main blame for tonight’s disorder goes to those causing it. But the roots go deeper. Nigel Farage who has been spewing hate speech for over a decade. Stephen Yaxley-Lennon who formed the EDL which is believed to have led tonight’s disorder. Rishu Sunak and his loathsome government, whose anti-migrant rhetoric has emboldened extremists everywhere. The media, like The Mail, Express, Telegraph et al, who have been actively stirring up hate and division for as long as I can remember. And it is those of us who have encouraged the extremists by voting for the fascists, by buying the newspapers, by attending marches, by falling for the lies.
Incredibly, the sickening slaughter of the innocents has been overshadowed by the mob. No peaceful reflection, no floral tributes, no attending the vigils for them. As the post on X said, “they don’t care about the children who were brutally murdered, the ones who survived but are injured and traumatised. They don’t care about the devastated families either. They see an opportunity to spread hate. That’s it.”
Never forget that these lowlifes are not all of us. Southport for Swifties has already raised over a quarter of a million pounds for Alder Hey’s Children’s Charity.
Tonight’s criminality must not break us. Sure, every single one of the rioting thugs could punch my lights out. I’m getting old and probably couldn’t fight my way out of a paper bag. But what I do have is a heart and compassion and love for my fellow man and woman and I would never take part in those sickening scenes a few streets away from where young children met their deaths.
God knows how the families of the bereaved and injured are feeling tonight. I can guarantee that the thuggery would have made things worse, not better. In the end, the thugs can’t win because there are more of us than there are of them. And, tough though it may seem, good will prevail over bad, hope will prevail over hate.
Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse, they get worse. The only solution, the only answer is love. And love always wins through in the end.
