THE purpose of parliamentary inquiries seems to be not to reveal truth, but to consolidate official narrative. ‘Two-tier’ policing, as observed by many concerned citizens when hundreds of protesters were arrested following the murder of three young girls in Southport last year, is a phenomenon that MPs as well as Keir Starmer are determined to refute. The verdict of the Home Affairs Select Committee Inquiry into the police response to the summer 2024 disorder published two weeks ago reflects this. MPs from across the chamber have produced a report with the predictable verdict that policing and justice are being administered fairly. ‘Nothing to see here’ except for ‘police unpreparedness’, the ever co-operative BBC reported:
‘Police forces were in several cases unprepared for the level of violence that broke out in riots after the murder of three children in Southport last summer . . . It left officers exposed to “significant risk”, the Home Affairs Committee said, in disorder that saw attacks on mosques and hotels housing asylum seekers. However, the report said the policing response was “entirely appropriate” given the violence and criminality – with no evidence to suggest “two-tier policing”.’
As a consequence of this inquiry, the passive majority of society will be assured by the MSM that the two-tier notion is a falsehood perpetuated by the far right. However critical thinkers who know that the BBC and other mainstream media spout propaganda and lies, and who search for more accurate information and candid commentary online, are bound to be seething at this denial of the glaringly obvious, by what amounts to another layer of ‘trolling’. The intent is surely to demoralise us; as in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, we are expected to ignore the evidence of our eyes and ears and believe that 2 plus 2 equals 5.
Let us examine what the report requires us to deny and how it does it.
First it emphasises, ‘This was not protest’, although it clearly was. Second it describes the Southport protesters and demonstrators throughout as ‘rioters’. No they were not rioters. In the main they were demonstrators and protesters. Third the report asserts: ‘Those participating in disorder were not policed more strongly because of their supposed political views but because they were throwing missiles, assaulting police officers and committing arson.’
This is patently untrue. Many of the arrests were made for vocal or written (placards and tweets) protest, not for violence, or for simply not getting out of the way as riot police with shields moved on the crowd.
Finally the report staggeringly denies any difference in the policing of this compared with other disorderly protests while acknowledging ‘the perception’ that white protesters were punished more swiftly and harshly than the response to violence at Black Lives Matter rallies in 2020. It then uses a numerical comparison to deny any bias:
‘Overall, 360 protests took place during the Black Lives Matter protests, compared to 250 protests or events which took place during the 2024 disorder. Despite being of comparable scale, the 2024 disorder led to 1,804 arrests to date and saw 302 police officers injured, compared to 135 arrests and 35 injuries to police officers during the Black Lives Matter protests.’
Relative numbers like these could equally be taken as proof of the exact opposite – of more intense policing at Southport
The fact is the police were advised to take a ‘backed-off’ conciliatory position with the BLM protests which had institutional establishment support – one politician after another including mayor Sadiq Khan, who has authority over the Metropolitan Police, taking the knee. This was followed by the spectacle of police officers themselves deferentially ‘taking a knee’, apparently on demand of the crowd. The contrast with their hostility to people gathering after the Southport killings could not be starker. This very imbalance in the policing approach is what the report ignores and denies even though different policing tactics were applied. London monuments had to be quickly boarded up to protect them from BLM ‘protesters’, after a statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square was defaced, and a protester climbed the Cenotaph to set a Union Jack alight. Police also generally wore normal uniform, resorting to protective gear only in the evening when projectiles were thrown at them. You could say that BLM was given a free pass.
By contrast at the Southport-related demonstrations, the riot squad was present from the outset, and, in sharp contrast to BLM policing, their tactics seemed intended to ‘up the ante’, leading to arrests for aggressive reaction by protesters. Involvement of agents provocateurs was suspected, exploiting reaction to the girls’ shocking murders to channel anger towards immigrants and ethnic minorities and to create scenes to grab the headlines (such as the burning of a police station in Sunderland).
The Home Affairs report glosses over the barbaric attack on 11 innocent girls and three adults at a dance class, and is tin-eared to the widespread and intense public concern and alarm that the protests symbolised. The report suggests, like many politicians and mainstream media commentators at the time, that the post-Southport unrest was qualitatively different to any other protest and that the entire event is associated with thuggery and racism. Yet there were many peaceful rallies with the majority of participants across the country committing no acts of violence.
Significantly, the report blames malevolence on the internet for inciting disorder, noting that policing and the judiciary were behind the times. ‘In key aspects, the criminal justice system has failed to keep pace with the social media age.’ The political reaction was in tune with government interventions such as the Online Safety Act, which is really a tool of censorship.
The report also notes that ‘contempt of court rules led to restrictions on disclosure which created an information vacuum that allowed disinformation to flourish’. But as Toby Young points out, Keir Starmer himself is likely to have breached legislation on online misinformation; his obfuscation on the identity of the killer triggered Muslim communities to organise intimidating counter-protests. Furthermore much of the disinformation turned out to be correct. Local people knew the identity of Axel Rudakubana, a child of immigrants.
Like most inquiries from Westminster or Whitehall, the Home Affairs Select Committee’s report is a means of settling a narrative that deliberately overlooks inconvenient truths and maintains the status quo. There is no commitment to or concern for preventing a savage Southport style attack happening again, but a strong message is given that protesting against savagery by a person of migrant background will not be tolerated. We have mentioned BLM already, and in Part 2 we shall further scrutinise the claim that protests are policed consistently, without fear or favour.
