The tragic murder in Southport of three innocent girls at a Taylor Swift Dance club, and the serious injuries to five other girls and two adults was an appalling tragedy. It was truly every parent’s worst nightmare.
It is obviously difficult to know with certainty, but it seems likely this was a result of the crazed, psychotic actions of a young man who had utterly lost contact with humanity and reality. It was evil and should be punished in the strongest possible terms.
The reaction of the overwhelming majority of good people in Southport who have come together with the families of the murdered girls in mutual support, care and solidarity has been heartwarming.
The reaction of a minority of violent, extreme right-wing thugs in Southport and elsewhere in Britain has been in contrast disgusting, utterly unacceptable and in its way evil as well.
Firstly, the deliberate lies about the perpetrator of this crime who was not an asylum seeker and not on an MI6 watch list. People and organisations who use and abuse a tragedy like these murders in Southport and deliberately and knowingly lie about it, have evil intent.
And the reckless arson they have perpetrated and their lawless, immoral, baying and violent attacks on the police, mosques and hotels housing asylum seekers are in reality mob rule. Which are a danger and threat to us all. And they have to be met with the strongest possible response by the police and the courts. As the Prime Minister has said these thugs will come to regret their actions and the Home Secretary has said both those taking part in violence and those whipping them up online will face a reckoning. Absolutely right and in all our interests.
But this appalling crime of murder in Southport is part of a knife crime epidemic in Britain that we must tackle.
People often say crime is out of control. The facts are different. Across all crime categories, the numbers have fallen for over three decades under successive Governments. But with one big exception. Knife crime has risen by 80 per cent since 2015. 282 people were fatally stabbed in 2022. And the steepest increases in knife crime are in our towns and suburbs, so this is no longer a problem confined to our cities.
This is a complex problem. If it was easy to resolve it would have happened. So, in our response we need to avoid senseless party political point scoring. And here the response to the Dunblane massacre in 1996 indicates a way forward, where John Major and Tony Blair jointly visited Dunblane to demonstrate shared solidarity with the local community, and joint determination to show such a gun crime massacre would not happen again. We need similar joint determination by the Government and opposition to knife crime.
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Practically we need tough guaranteed sanctions for carrying a knife, curfews, tagging or detention. Every offender must be referred to a Youth Offending team and have a mandatory, bespoke action plan to prevent re-offending.
But we also need prevention. A targeted programme in every area to identify young people most at risk with a package of support tailored to their needs. Youth workers in A and E units, custody centres and communities, and mentors in pupil referral units, to target young people at risk. A plan for youth mental health with support in schools and open access hubs.
We must get the knives off our streets, with an urgent crackdown on the possession and sale of machetes, zombie knives and swords.
And we need education. Too many young people think they are safer carrying a knife when the reverse is emphatically the case.
In opposition, Labour was committed to all of this. In Government, it needs to act quickly with this agenda for change. I hope the opposition will support it. To ensure we tackle the knife crime epidemic and to do everything possible to avoid another Southport.