Summer of discontent

‘A repeat of last year’s summer riots is inevitable as government has failed to act.’ (ITV News)

My parents used to say, ‘There’s none so deaf as those that won’t hear and none so blind as those that won't see.’ They were right.
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A new report came out last week, The State of Us – Community Strength and Cohesion in the UK, as the output of research in response to widespread protests and riots in the UK last year. With tensions at breaking point once again in places like Northern Ireland and Essex, it’s a timely reflection on what lays behind such boiling discontent and what radical solutions may be needed to address it.

One could argue: far too little and far too late. Dame Sara Khan, the Government's own Independent Adviser for Social Cohesion and Resilience, had already commented astutely on last year’s unrest: ‘While the police were excellent in dealing with the summer riots under very difficult circumstances, we have to remember and appreciate that’s a downstream approach.’ In other words, addressing effects. Khan offers a sobering critique: ‘The lessons have not been learned (from last year). The signs (then) were flashing red.’ She goes on to question pertinently, ‘Where is the upstream approach to identify, prevent and respond to tensions when they are breaking out, or to address the grievances that people have? …There is no central government guidance or strategy to prevent such activity.’

Mark Fairhurst, Chair of the UK Prison Officer’s Association, echoed her deep frustration in a recent press release: ‘The Justice System lurches from crisis to crisis. The prison estate cannot cope with the existing prison population and now the Government has announced they can cope with unpredicted rises in the prison population without explaining where all the additional staff will come from.’ He was reacting to news that the Government is preparing emergency prison spaces in case of summer riots. ‘Maybe, just maybe a better option would be to address the fundamental issues that fuel unrest, in some cases that is poverty and a sense of hopelessness and alienation and in others it is the lack of police on the streets and a failure to crack down on political groups who stir up civil unrest.’

The Government’s response? To clamp down on free speech. God help us.