[Crimson Dynamo]

The ‘community cohesion’ concept explains confusing police tactics

Merseyside police were very keen to rule out the Southport attack as
‘terrorism-related’. This was despite subsequent remarks from the Home
Office that counter-terrorism police were still assisting the investigation. That
muddled explanation will fall on deaf ears. Whether this turns out to be an
act encompassed within the dry legalistic definition of terrorism, the dead are
still dead.

Why are the police in the firing line this weekend? Why have they not been
more forthcoming originally on details? Could a quicker reaction have
dampened the riots we have seen over the past few days?

One reason that the police strategy looks so baffling could be Merseyside’s
concern that nebulous ‘community cohesion’ must be protected at all costs.
Was it a flawed calculation? Did the police decide that releasing too many
details would inflame tensions in communities that had previous incidents
characterised by ethnicity and religion? If that’s the case, the recent mayhem
suggests that strategy is flawed.

The video of the police response to disorder at Manchester airport, the attack
on a senior Army officer, disorder in Leeds and Whitechapel all have distinct
features of ethnicity and religion. Concern and anger about the policing of
these events surely swelled the massive demonstration in London last
Saturday led by Tommy Robinson. Accusations of political policing of protest
where the intensity of enforcement is greater if the protestor is white, now a
meme in itself – ‘two-tier Keir’ have been viewed on social media well over
a million times.

We are always encouraged to seek the much safer narrative ground of
compassion and concern for victims and survivors – an entreaty made with
depressing regularity. But is this sufficient to quell increasing feelings of
public rage? Clearly not.

Sir Keir Starmer’s high profile meeting with chief constables and the sombre
press conference afterwards has not done enough to quell people’s fears. A
national strategy to disrupt far-right extremism is a necessary but insufficient
response to violence on the streets that encompasses other forms of
extremism, influenced by religion and hard-left sentiment. The threat of
Islamist extremist terrorism, for example, dwarfs extreme right capability.


This is a time of social ferment that makes radicalisation more likely. A strong
defence of the rule of law against all forms of extremist violence would have
been better and could have reduced the temperature more.

Whatever Axel Rudakubana’s trial reveals, and he is entitled to the
presumption of innocence until proven guilty, Southport was an act of
domestic extremism of almost unparalleled ferocity in the last ten years. The
sundered bodies of little children and those adults who we are told bravely
tried to defend them holds a unique grasp on the psyche. The horror has
been exploited online with powerful imagery conjured up by AI to paint
‘British’ children at the mercy of knife wielding Muslim maniacs.

There is no evidence the knifeman is a Muslim, but we ought to know all the
facts about the background of the alleged perpetrator as soon as possible.
Further dithering will be exploited by those who want to break community
cohesion as a conspiracy. But here we are again. A more agile, assertive,
even-handed and transparent approach to the truth by the authorities is the
only thing available to counter such propaganda. It is nowhere to be seen.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-we-need-transparency-from-the-police/