THE focus should have been on the girls and young women who have been killed or are still in critical condition after the horrific attack in Southport.

The focus should have been on how we support that local community and the families who have been left devastated. Instead, we have racist and far-right movements weaponising a tragedy to promote their own warped ideology of disinformation and hate. Within minutes of the attack, social media was filled with lies to suit a hateful agenda and encourage violence and thuggery against asylum seekers, migrants, and Muslims in particular.

That very community, still in pain, were having to hide in their homes, clean-up after the rioters and some, having to find the courage to face the rioters head-on with hastily made signs saying no to racism. What amazing people.

Those of us who have marched and campaigned against far-right and fascist movements are not surprised by these tactics, they have been defining features of these movements, particularly across digital platforms. What surprises us is how surprised some in power are. The journalists and commentators wondering how it got to this? Clearly, they have not been paying attention.

READ MORE: Could Scotland experience far-right riots like in Southport?

Over the last decade this violence towards our communities has been given the green light time and again. Some overtly endorsing, others covertly creating the environment to enable division and hate.

Those commentators who have been pontificating on the “legitimate concerns” that these violent rioters have on immigration or on integration are part of this problem. Those who have used every platform at their hands to question whether Muslims can truly integrate and whether multiculturalism has failed.

Those who have taken every policy from the GP crisis to crumbling public services and not questioned austerity measures, but rather used their front pages to blame asylum seekers who are often escaping violence and terror themselves and who live in inhumane conditions on £49 a week.

The politicians who have used hostile environment policies to persecute migrants and asylum seekers and blame them for every failed policy. Who have created culture wars to cover their own incompetence and even now, after a thumping loss in the general election are still at it.

(Image: Michael Holmes)

The favourite to win the Conservative Party leadership is quoted in an interview, not two days after these violent and racist riots, telling us integration isn’t working. A statement that is not only unevidenced, but hugely dangerous right now.

None of this is hyperbolic, the link is clear to see. These riots, now in many parts of the UK, have included chants of “we want our country back”, “who the **** is Allah and “stop the boats” – the latter being a common slogan bought to us by the Conservative party and former Government. This violence did not appear in a vacuum, it has been legitimised.

The accountability is not simply in the arrests of those who have engaged in thuggery over the last few days, there must be accountability on how spaces within politics, news and social media have enabled these last few days to come about after years of drip-feeding bigotry.

The day after the attack in Southport, Nigel Farage published a video in which he suggested that a truth was being held back from the public and questioned why this was not being treated as a terror-threat. He encouraged conspiracy, he encouraged division, and he sits at the heart of decision-making in the UK.

READ MORE: Dozens arrested as far-right disorder continues in English cities

He has influenced politics in an alarmingly successful way from Brexit to the inflammatory rhetoric around immigration. In spite of all of this, his influence grows, and then we have the audacity of some asking questions on how on earth it got to this.

There have been riots organised outside Mosques with bricks thrown at buildings, two Muslim women have reported having their hijabs pulled off, a group of Black passengers had to hide at the front of a bus to escape attack, a Muslim man has been stabbed outside a train station and an Asian man was pulled from his car, his windows smashed whilst racist slurs were shouted at him.

There are many like me from visible minorities, who will have family and friends messaging them with the latest news, panicking about what might happen and reminding each other to be vigilant and stay safe.

These same rioters are those who, in their blinded bigotry call me and my community terrorists, yet it is they who are doing the terrorising.

Tommy Robinson has endorsed a rally in Glasgow, stating nobody can keep him away, except of course him being out of the country running from contempt of court proceedings. There is already an anti-racism counter demonstration ready to go, and as we often chant at these marches; there are many, many more of us than you.

I have faith in the many I have campaigned alongside and the many more I do not know but will take part in anti-racist protests across the UK. Solidarity is our most effective weapon against racism and I have more faith in the solidarity I see within communities, than I do of those with power in politics and media doing the self-reflection and scrutiny needed to realise how much they have played along in a dangerous game.

But if this scrutiny is not realised, if change is not pursued, then hate will spread. We must change the language used for migrants and asylum seekers, we must deliver on policy that is compassionate and humane, we must invest in the pursuit of an anti-racist society rather than demonise attempts to create even the smallest steps of progression and equity.

This is not the time to appease bigotry, this is the time to loudly, unapologetically, oppose it.