Is football hooliganism fashionable?

We are told time and time and again that we simply must ignore the evidence of our own eyes: there is no two tier policing in Britain. Even when Henry Nowak was breathing his last, handcuffed on the floor as his murderer loomed over him yelling “racist” were we told that we simply must deny all such allegations that the police treat different groups differently according to a hierarchy of oppression.

It is now once again our solemn duty to deny the evidence of our own eyes, as Moroccan football fans riot on Edgware Road following Morocco’s loss to France in the World Cup, leading to a police officer being hospitalised. The footage is horrifying, as one of central London’s main streets succumbs to complete and utter lawlessness. Well I refuse to deny the evidence of my own eyes. It means we have only gone one week since the last riot on the street, after Egypt beat Australia.

Unlike the riots that took place in Southampton after the murder of Henry Nowak, when Keir Starmer was both straight out of the traps condemning the violence, we haven’t heard a peep from him.

Let’s bear in mind the last time we had a story about violence and football fans. Late last year the predominantly Jewish fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv were banned from coming to the UK to attend their team’s game against Aston Villa, due to fears of violence. Not violence on their part, albeit that’s what West Midlands police claimed in one of the most sordid events in the history of any British police force. Instead they were banned partly because of fears of violence against the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from the local community. Thank God for Nick Timothy, the shadow justice secretary, without whom the true details of this scandal may not have emerged.

So what do we do now that we have genuinely violent football fans on our streets, albeit from a different religious and ethnic background to those of Maccabi Tel Aviv?

We’ve seen a template for how to deal with football-related hooliganism in the past, during the 1960s onwards. A huge police presence, with riot gear, thousands upon thousands of arrests, prison sentences, the segregation of fans, a ban on alcohol and multiple pieces of legislation including the Public Order Act 1986, the Football Spectators Act 1989, the Football Offences Act 1991, and the Football Offences Acts of 1999 and 2000. The latter is particularly fascinating. It has been described as having been “rushed through Parliament” by then Home Secretary Jack Straw after violent clashes during Euro 2000, held in the Low Countries. It allows for the police to arrest those suspected of travelling abroad to engage in hooliganism, and to withhold their passports up to five days before an international fixture. No criminal conviction was required.

Can anyone with a straight face tell me they think there will be a similar legislative response to the growing problem of violence from foreign fans, or fans of foreign teams?

Can anyone with a straight face tell me they think there will be a similar legislative response to the growing problem of violence from foreign fans, or fans of foreign teams? Can anyone with a straight face tell me they think there will be any action beyond a few arrests, maybe a conviction or two for the worst offender — likely a suspended sentence at most? It is surely an inescapable conclusion that white football fans creating trouble is seen as something significantly more disturbing than football fans with other backgrounds. Will we see deportations of those with no right to be here? Or visas revoked for non-citizens? The obvious step, eviction from social housing, is unfortunately close to impossible for local councils. Under housing law, evictions for crime and anti-social behaviour generally require the crime to have taken place within the immediate environs or against a neighbour or landlord. And for most who live in social housing in Westminster, the secure lifetime tenancies handed out by the last Labour administration for residents living in some of the most lucrative locations anywhere in the world make it even harder.

What makes the obvious issue of two-tier justice and two tier policing so extraordinarily difficult to solve is that the institutions and leaders responsible truly don’t believe in its existence. A comparison with policing in the American Deep South of the 1960s would obviously be overblown, but the difference is not only one of severity. At least there, institutional prejudice — if not outright racism — was self-aware, deliberate and explicit. They may have fought against a change to that culture, but at least they admitted in its existence. Indeed, they revelled in it. Bull Connor, the Birmingham Commissioner of Public Safety, once said of the Civil Right movement: “I may not be able to do it but I’ll die trying.”

Now the situation is more pernicious. As Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch put it, “Police don’t set out to carry out two-tier policing, but that is what many people are experiencing.” The appropriate analogy feels like an alcoholic – admitting the problem is the first step. And as the riots on Edgware Road show — both in the response to it and in the nature of the problem itself —far too few in our governing institutions are ready yet to admit to it.