Violent disorder is usually counterproductive in the UK though there is a long history of when it has worked from the St Scholastica Day riots in 1355 to the poll tax riots of 1989 via Broadwater Farm when a police constable was hacked to death in 1985 and that led to investment in the estate where the criminality had coccured.
In recent times, the narratives, the overrarching aims and values involved in media accounts and goverment comments, vary according to who is involved in the violence. Rioters are thugs if white working class, but members of an aggrieved community if non-white and especially if they are muslim.
The triggers for a riot are secondary. They may be real or imagined. In Harehills social services really were removing some children (not that rioting is a justified response to lawful local authority activity) but imaginary in the case of Southport. Yes, there are credulous fools involved but the deeper question is why the false accounts about the identity of the Southport criminal were so readily believed. Fifty years ago news of one individual's killing spree would not have provoked a riot. Today, the belief that an immigrant is involved, even second generation (like the 2005 bombers), is all too probable.
EDL supporters, if that is who the rioters were, are responding after Lee Rigby, the Westmninster Bridge and London Bridge attacks, the Manchester Airport violence, and the recent attack on a soldier. It is these background conditions that need to change, the feeling that nothing does change to the detriment of the indiginous working class. Anger and resentment are permanently present, never far below the surface. It is a failure of politics and politicians that leaves these people feeling abandoned. The blogging, tweeting class can condemn them for their lack of political nous - many are simply uncouth indeed - but one can also sympathise as well as deplore.
"Anger and resentment are permanenty present, never far below the surface."
That is the issue. Those in power seem not to realise that the gap between the controlled and the powerful is growing ever wider. This is probably just the beginning.
Some good reflections there Pete - thankyou for them.
I often think people put the cart before the horse when it comes to martyrdom/causes etc. What we need to understand before going any further or leaping to conclusions is the mental health (or otherwise) of the perp here, their history of drugs taken (both prescription and recreational).
This is far more relevant than whatever 'cause' or otherwise this was apparently done in the name of. Wacky causes attract wacky people and always have, the myth of 'radicalisation' is largely that, peddled by people who perhaps don't want to confront uncomfortable truths.
The sight of anyone exploiting the grief and misery of people who are clearly in shock, for political purposes, has always struck me as something that should put requisite chills down spines. Perhaps I'm being soft or naive, but there are clearly some twisted people out there who de facto celebrate this sort of thing happening and want to latch onto it. Just sick really.
Agree with you Pete. It is profoundly depressing to see how dumb so many right wing commentators have been since the election. Some of them have lost their minds. We urgently need some intellectual thinkers to help the Right re-group. Your manifesto is a great start but the Right needs to grow up, accept the deserved election defeat and stop the tinpot racist rabble-rousing.
Have appreciated both Richard and Pete's articles on this. Just a couple of observations from me; please forgive political views when central to this issue is child murder and how we can stop this happening again in the UK. That should be the unifying issue.
Yet in 24 short hours the unifying issue is no longer the slaughter of innocents, it's condemnation of the far-right. It's tiresome, not least because we barely have any politicians you could even describe as right of centre, let alone "literally Hitler" but here we are. Frankly - and I'm going off politicians tweets now - the only thing holding Labour together right now as a unified force after just a few weeks is an ability to indulge in fantasy right-wing bashing. So unrest like this is a gift from the Gods right now, especially after the budget's rather bumpy landing.
But...somehow...the country needs to find it's voice on matters that affect people who are not seen as the natural voters for Labour or Tory. You only have to go back 40 years or so to racial unrest in UK to hear leaders/spokesman like Diane Abbot, Bernie Grant, Darcus Howe, Benjamin Zephaniah etc to bring out the Dr MLK Jnr quote "...a riot is the language of the unheard". Fast forward 40 years and the main public pronouncements of the new Labour MP's have been restricted to Xerox Labour HQ tweets. Yes local Labour HQ want time to grieve. But meanwhile people need articulate leadership that addresses their concerns. If not the elected MP, then who?
Meanwhile if that single elected MP won't take the lead in demanding answers from the police - taking my cue here from Pete's sage advice re avoiding the whirling cesspool of misinformation - then outsourcing your anger to an anonymous knucklehead happy to indulge in some close season thuggery probably seems a decent option.
It just feels like we are having to re-learn something because we have no long-term memory for how the UK adapts over a period of time. By adopting what works, dumping what doesn't, protest, parliamentary representation and debate, and the haphazard "get there in the end" evolution of English common law. I miss all that.
Leaving us with a Government huge majority/low country-wide support that can only hold together by "demonisation of the other". The result feels to me like a serious democratic deficit which will end very badly. For all of us.
Rambling and inarticulate but that's me. And probably good number of people who have had their hearts broken in Southport. Government needs to help them speak with their own voice, however unpleasant those words may seem.
Most importantly, RIP those little girls. Never again.
The so called "farr wight terwubble makers" who caused all the fracas in Southport were most likely spurred on and organised by MI5 agent provocateurs, because that is how the British state operates to control narratives. They have to maintain the illusion of the "farr wight" bogeyman. They infiltrate far left groups like Antifa too. Antifa is also heavily infiltrated by the intel services. It's just how they roll. They have to be able to manipulate these dark forces to their advantage at all times. It's a battle of dwindling returns because more people can see through their deceit.
There is an ongoing Undercover Policing Inquiry, an independent statutory inquiry into undercover policing in England and Wales. It was announced by Theresa May, the then Home Secretary, on 6 March 2014. The inquiry has published several interim reports.
The inquiry was to focus on the deployment of about 140 undercover police officers to spy on over 1,000 political groups over more than 40 years.
As of April 2018 the inquiry confirmed that undercover police had infiltrated the following groups and movements:
Anarchist groups, Animal Liberation Front, Anti-Apartheid Movement, Anti-Fascist Action, Big Flame, Black Power movement, Brixton Hunt Saboteurs, Anglia Ruskin Churchill Society (Young Conservatives), Colin Roach Centre, Dambusters Mobilising Committee, Dissent!, Earth First!, Essex Hunt Saboteurs, Friends of Freedom Press Ltd, Globalise Resistance, Independent Labour Party, Independent Working Class Association, International Marxist Group, International Socialists, Irish National Liberation Solidarity Front, London Animal Action, London Animal Rights Coalition, London Boots Action Group, London Greenpeace, Militant, No Platform, Antifa, Operation Omega, Reclaim the Streets, Red Action, Republican Forum, Revolutionary Socialist Students Federation, Socialist Party (England and Wales), Socialist Workers Party, South London Animal Movement (SLAM), Tri-Continental, Troops Out Movement, Vietnam Solidarity Campaign, West London Hunt Saboteurs, Workers Revolutionary Party, Young Haganah, Young Liberals, Youth against Racism in Europe.
There is no excuse for a riot. Also, if the murderer was mentally ill it will take some time to establish that with a proper psychiatric assessment. Anyone rushing in with such a diagnosis is talking rubbish.
Violent disorder is usually counterproductive in the UK though there is a long history of when it has worked from the St Scholastica Day riots in 1355 to the poll tax riots of 1989 via Broadwater Farm when a police constable was hacked to death in 1985 and that led to investment in the estate where the criminality had coccured.
In recent times, the narratives, the overrarching aims and values involved in media accounts and goverment comments, vary according to who is involved in the violence. Rioters are thugs if white working class, but members of an aggrieved community if non-white and especially if they are muslim.
The triggers for a riot are secondary. They may be real or imagined. In Harehills social services really were removing some children (not that rioting is a justified response to lawful local authority activity) but imaginary in the case of Southport. Yes, there are credulous fools involved but the deeper question is why the false accounts about the identity of the Southport criminal were so readily believed. Fifty years ago news of one individual's killing spree would not have provoked a riot. Today, the belief that an immigrant is involved, even second generation (like the 2005 bombers), is all too probable.
EDL supporters, if that is who the rioters were, are responding after Lee Rigby, the Westmninster Bridge and London Bridge attacks, the Manchester Airport violence, and the recent attack on a soldier. It is these background conditions that need to change, the feeling that nothing does change to the detriment of the indiginous working class. Anger and resentment are permanently present, never far below the surface. It is a failure of politics and politicians that leaves these people feeling abandoned. The blogging, tweeting class can condemn them for their lack of political nous - many are simply uncouth indeed - but one can also sympathise as well as deplore.
"Anger and resentment are permanenty present, never far below the surface."
That is the issue. Those in power seem not to realise that the gap between the controlled and the powerful is growing ever wider. This is probably just the beginning.
Some good reflections there Pete - thankyou for them.
I often think people put the cart before the horse when it comes to martyrdom/causes etc. What we need to understand before going any further or leaping to conclusions is the mental health (or otherwise) of the perp here, their history of drugs taken (both prescription and recreational).
This is far more relevant than whatever 'cause' or otherwise this was apparently done in the name of. Wacky causes attract wacky people and always have, the myth of 'radicalisation' is largely that, peddled by people who perhaps don't want to confront uncomfortable truths.
The sight of anyone exploiting the grief and misery of people who are clearly in shock, for political purposes, has always struck me as something that should put requisite chills down spines. Perhaps I'm being soft or naive, but there are clearly some twisted people out there who de facto celebrate this sort of thing happening and want to latch onto it. Just sick really.
Wait you're on Twitter? I see you as suspended
Agree with you Pete. It is profoundly depressing to see how dumb so many right wing commentators have been since the election. Some of them have lost their minds. We urgently need some intellectual thinkers to help the Right re-group. Your manifesto is a great start but the Right needs to grow up, accept the deserved election defeat and stop the tinpot racist rabble-rousing.
Have appreciated both Richard and Pete's articles on this. Just a couple of observations from me; please forgive political views when central to this issue is child murder and how we can stop this happening again in the UK. That should be the unifying issue.
Yet in 24 short hours the unifying issue is no longer the slaughter of innocents, it's condemnation of the far-right. It's tiresome, not least because we barely have any politicians you could even describe as right of centre, let alone "literally Hitler" but here we are. Frankly - and I'm going off politicians tweets now - the only thing holding Labour together right now as a unified force after just a few weeks is an ability to indulge in fantasy right-wing bashing. So unrest like this is a gift from the Gods right now, especially after the budget's rather bumpy landing.
But...somehow...the country needs to find it's voice on matters that affect people who are not seen as the natural voters for Labour or Tory. You only have to go back 40 years or so to racial unrest in UK to hear leaders/spokesman like Diane Abbot, Bernie Grant, Darcus Howe, Benjamin Zephaniah etc to bring out the Dr MLK Jnr quote "...a riot is the language of the unheard". Fast forward 40 years and the main public pronouncements of the new Labour MP's have been restricted to Xerox Labour HQ tweets. Yes local Labour HQ want time to grieve. But meanwhile people need articulate leadership that addresses their concerns. If not the elected MP, then who?
Meanwhile if that single elected MP won't take the lead in demanding answers from the police - taking my cue here from Pete's sage advice re avoiding the whirling cesspool of misinformation - then outsourcing your anger to an anonymous knucklehead happy to indulge in some close season thuggery probably seems a decent option.
It just feels like we are having to re-learn something because we have no long-term memory for how the UK adapts over a period of time. By adopting what works, dumping what doesn't, protest, parliamentary representation and debate, and the haphazard "get there in the end" evolution of English common law. I miss all that.
Leaving us with a Government huge majority/low country-wide support that can only hold together by "demonisation of the other". The result feels to me like a serious democratic deficit which will end very badly. For all of us.
Rambling and inarticulate but that's me. And probably good number of people who have had their hearts broken in Southport. Government needs to help them speak with their own voice, however unpleasant those words may seem.
Most importantly, RIP those little girls. Never again.
What is the technical definition of multiculturalism?
The so called "farr wight terwubble makers" who caused all the fracas in Southport were most likely spurred on and organised by MI5 agent provocateurs, because that is how the British state operates to control narratives. They have to maintain the illusion of the "farr wight" bogeyman. They infiltrate far left groups like Antifa too. Antifa is also heavily infiltrated by the intel services. It's just how they roll. They have to be able to manipulate these dark forces to their advantage at all times. It's a battle of dwindling returns because more people can see through their deceit.
There is an ongoing Undercover Policing Inquiry, an independent statutory inquiry into undercover policing in England and Wales. It was announced by Theresa May, the then Home Secretary, on 6 March 2014. The inquiry has published several interim reports.
https://www.ucpi.org.uk/
The inquiry was to focus on the deployment of about 140 undercover police officers to spy on over 1,000 political groups over more than 40 years.
As of April 2018 the inquiry confirmed that undercover police had infiltrated the following groups and movements:
Anarchist groups, Animal Liberation Front, Anti-Apartheid Movement, Anti-Fascist Action, Big Flame, Black Power movement, Brixton Hunt Saboteurs, Anglia Ruskin Churchill Society (Young Conservatives), Colin Roach Centre, Dambusters Mobilising Committee, Dissent!, Earth First!, Essex Hunt Saboteurs, Friends of Freedom Press Ltd, Globalise Resistance, Independent Labour Party, Independent Working Class Association, International Marxist Group, International Socialists, Irish National Liberation Solidarity Front, London Animal Action, London Animal Rights Coalition, London Boots Action Group, London Greenpeace, Militant, No Platform, Antifa, Operation Omega, Reclaim the Streets, Red Action, Republican Forum, Revolutionary Socialist Students Federation, Socialist Party (England and Wales), Socialist Workers Party, South London Animal Movement (SLAM), Tri-Continental, Troops Out Movement, Vietnam Solidarity Campaign, West London Hunt Saboteurs, Workers Revolutionary Party, Young Haganah, Young Liberals, Youth against Racism in Europe.
There is no excuse for a riot. Also, if the murderer was mentally ill it will take some time to establish that with a proper psychiatric assessment. Anyone rushing in with such a diagnosis is talking rubbish.