I sympathise with people who find it ghoulish that in the aftermath of the horrific murder of three young girls at a dance class in Southport discourse has surrounded not the victims but the killer and his heritage. This seems doubly true after anti-immigration protestors left dozens of police officers injured after violence erupted when a balaclava-clad man with a flick knife was arrested near a vigil.

Yet a question must be asked. When is it okay to discuss immigration in the context of an event? When is it okay to discuss immigration following the brutal stabbing of a uniformed soldier in Kent? When was it okay following a Moroccan refugee’s savage killing of a Hartlepool pensioner in the name of Palestine? When was it okay following the Afghan refugee Abdul Ezedi’s alkaline attacks? What about Valdo Calocane’s triple murder in Nottingham? Mohammad Farooq’s attempted bombing of St James’ Hospital? Bear in mind that I’m only talking about events from the last couple of years.

The answer, of course, is that for left-leaning politicians and commentators there will never be a good time. To draw a link between violent events and immigration is considered unacceptable not just in certain contexts, or in certain forms, but as a whole.

There is no reason why those political decisions should be placed beyond analysis

You don’t have to tell me that immigrants — like anyone else — should not be judged by their worst representatives. I am an immigrant, and if one of my fellow Britons in Poland did something heinous I would be mortified if I was held responsible. But it would still be fair for immigration to be considered as a factor — and this would be even truer if there was a potential trend of heinous acts. Our presence in the country, after all, is not the result of organic community life but of political decisions-making. There is no reason why those political decisions should be placed beyond analysis.

Granted, a lot of right-wing commentators online have not been arguing responsibly. Naive and hot-headed voices latched onto a random website’s baseless claim that the killer was a Muslim refugee. Soon, thousands of people were convinced that this was the case solely on the word of “Channel 3 Now” (no, I’d never heard of it either).

The Robinsonian right appears to dimly assume that any act of violence from a member of an ethnic minority — if not any act of violence in general — must have been motivated by Islamic extremism. Granted, a lot of them are (the past few years alone have witnessed the Hartlepool murder, the Liverpool Women’s Hospital bombing, the murder of David Amess MP and a Libyan refugee’s triple murder in Reading). But the alleged perpetrator in Southport has been reported to be the child of Rwandan immigrants. About 2 per cent of Rwandans are Muslims. Sure, it’s possible that he is one. Yet it should not be anyone’s leading assumption. 

I suspect that like Calocone in 2023, who killed three innocents in Nottingham, the killer had serious mental health problems. Right-wingers tend to suspect that this explanation is designed to let the establishment off the hook. But it does not. We know that men of African descent are, for whatever reason, far likelier to be diagnosed with psychotic disorders than other people. Ten times more black men, indeed, according to government statistics, experience a psychotic disorder than white men. This tragic fact generally makes them more of a danger to themselves than anybody else — but not always, and that merits consideration.

It is grim to watch the ugly scenes from Southport (amusing clip of some chap catching a brick to his testicles aside). Yet it cannot be divorced from the normalising of communitarian violence. 

Large-scale disorder broke out in Southend just last night after the police issued a dispersal order following a machete fight between young gang members. This month, Roma men were rioting in Harehills, Leeds. In the past year, police officers have been injured at protests against the war in Gaza and tyranny in Eritrea. 

Riots, under-policed and under-explained, have become an increasingly common means of expressing collective discontent

This is not to excuse anyone for rioting. Crime is crime. It is to say that riots, under-policed and under-explained, have become an increasingly common means of expressing collective discontent. The impulsive and opportunistic — following genuine outrage, whatever its merits — are enabled by political cowardice. It would take a fool, in this context, to be startled by white Britons rioting when majority opinion has been so systematically ignored and misused by useless and cynical politicians who pretend to address concerns while raising instead of cutting numbers. I’d never cheer a communist revolt but if a king responded to widespread discontent by cutting wages and raising prices, I would not be surprised to see one.

Meanwhile, three beautiful children are dead. Their deaths cannot escape their political context, but that does not mean that they should be reduced to them. They had their own habits, and hobbies, and dreams, and they will not be forgotten. May their memories comfort their family members in the days, and weeks, and months, and years ahead, and may the grieving be shielded with love.

As for minimising the tears that will fall in the future, though, that is up to our establishment. May we not allow it to forget these events as quickly as others have been forgotten.