Harehills, Leeds: what caused riot and who was responsible is now a matter for the police

And already the hate-filled chancers have explained it away as being a direct result of nasty foreigners who have no business on English shores. Let me give you a couple of examples from a man who cares so much about his newly won English constituency that he’s decided, on what should be his first day listening to the concerns of the people he now represents in Clacton, he is best-placed gallivanting around America snuffling for dollars.

“The politics of the subcontinent are currently playing out on the streets of Leeds. Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he nonchalantly tweeted from the US of A. Then, in a pop at Alex Sobel, the MP for Leeds Central and Headingley, he shouts: “When will you and the Labour Party apologise for irresponsible mass migration?”

Now, there is a lot to unpack from the racist-in-chief, here.

First of all, West Yorkshire Police has issued a stern yet polite call for people not to speculate as to that which triggered the unrest in Harehills last night. You do not need to have been a journalist for 22 years, as I have, nor a publicly elected, supposedly responsible, MP to know that tends to mean there are community sensitivities around what happened and that any ill-informed conjecture and/or speculation could be highly dangerous.

Secondly, ‘the politics of the subcontinent playing out on the streets of Leeds’: a more lazy, unhelpful, frankly racist trope you would struggle to confect. With absolutely no knowledge of what has happened, with a following of some 2m people, Nigel Farage sums up community disorder in a hard-up part of Leeds, where people struggle to make ends meet because of more than a decade of neglect, and he blames India. Yet, whilst, in his cigar-fume addled pea brain, it is the fault of the Indians, it is Labour - a party that hasn’t been in Government for 14 years - who should apologise for what happened in Leeds last night, but it was the Indians what done it.

Eh?

Then, one of Farage’s minions, Private Pipsqueak Stephen Yaxley-Lennon - whose real name makes him sound too posh so he goes by the cooler handle, Tommy Robinson - states: “look at this lone white bloke fighting all these foreigners without a police officer in sight, as these foreigners rip up pavements laid by the British (how the hell does he know) in order to throw them at British (how does he know!?) emergency services” - the police, he means, who, by the way, he had just said were nowhere in sight!

As you can see, you do not have to examine the evidence of the far right with any deal of scrutiny in order to see that it is nothing more than hot air from attention-seeking babies who think IQ is a model of Lexus … built by foreigners, of course, but their rhetoric is poison and it is dangerous and it is incumbent upon us all to call it out, belittle their ignorance and a pity their desperation.

The police have said this: “All criminal offences, including damage to vehicles from fire, will be fully investigated by detectives. We want to make it very clear that the full weight of the law will be brought against those responsible.”

Quite right, too.

Equally important, the new Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has said this: “I am appalled at the shocking scenes and attacks on police vehicles and public transport in Leeds tonight. Disorder of this nature has no place in our society.”

Again, quite right. Let us hope that just as the police hold to account the rioters in Leeds last night, who police have stated were likely triggered to do so by a criminal minority, there are mechanisms in place to hold equally to account MPs who pour petrol on the flames of public disorder whilst quaffing bubbly over the pond.

—

Write to me - it’s nice to hear from you all: [email protected]

Lend a hand - we need you more than ever - https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/subscriptions

This is an online version of the editor’s regular newsletter. Not all of James’ newsletters are published as online articles as well. To ensure you don’t miss one, subscribe today to lend James and The Yorkshire Post your support > https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/subscriptions